Thursday, February 19, 2015

Does HGTV Make You Hate Your House?

I adore Fixxer Upper.  It's on HGTV and it's shot in MY TOWN.  Chip and Joanna are so funny and cute, as in, I have laughed out loud many times while watching them interact on the show.  Also the Magnolia store that they run is literally three blocks from our house.  Sometimes on evening walks when the store is closed, I park the stroller in front and, while my bored kids dump their snack cups out in their parking lot, I look in their windows at all the fancy, rustic, mod, fresh decor and doodads in there.   Then I leave, not wanting any, because none of it would make sense in my house.  Except for the green school desk in there.  That I would take.

You see, according to HGTV, my family lives in a fixxer upper.  

The premise of this show is seeking out a house for a client who "has the guts to take on a fixxer upper," narrowing down a few properties, then in the remaining 45 minutes of air time showing weeks' worth of Chip and Joanna's work to fix it up into a stellar residence.  They are super talented and their work is awesome. It's the first 15 minutes of the show that get me, when they are showing the client three properties to possibly choose from, all of which "need some help".  In almost every episode and every property, I see my house.  Not literally, though how cool would that be to be on their show?  No, I mean that the many terrible things they point out that make a property a "fixxer upper"...can usually be found in our house...

"Oh man, look at all this paneling...we'd come in here and do all new sheetrock."    

Uh, the majority of our walls are paneling, some with wallpaper over them and some with paint over that.

"I do not like this siding. We'd need to think about residing the whole house."   

Uh, we have about four different types of siding on our house, some horizontal, some vertical, some gray, some blue, some white, some vinyl, some wood, some soft side, aka asphalt, aka our house is covered in road. 

"Whoa, look at all that old looking brick around the fireplace. We could paint that or re-rock it entirely, freshen it up for sure, make it look more mod."   

Uh, an entire wall of our den is an unpainted brick fireplace.  

"Gross wallpaper. Has to go."

Uh, our kitchen walls are a funky yellow square print bordered with wallpaper fruit, for goodness sake.

You get the idea. 

I heard from someone recently the sentiment "I can't watch HGTV shows.  They make me feel ungrateful, like what I have is just not good enough."   Oof, valid.  But for some reason, I don't really feel like that, even though our house could totally be a starting point for Chip and Joanna's renovation ideas.  You see, as crappy and fixxer upper ish as our house would seem on one of these shows...I'm really ok with it.  Now, for sure there are some things we want to work on over time and we happen to be slowly updating our kitchen as we speak. (As in, every time we go to Lowes we buy two or three more cabinet knobs and one or two more door hinges.  Baby steps, people, baby steps.)

I don't let HGTV get me down.  

Our house is old.  Our house has quirks.  Our house has some areas that are downright ugly.  Our house has some things that are broken.  It will never look like a magazine.  It will never be on tv.  The items in Joanna's shop three blocks away will never take up residence there.

But our house is our home.  Its paneled walls echo with laughter and its scratched up hardwood floors with the stomping of little feet playing chase.  It functions.  It keeps us dry.  It holds life and love.  And I am ok with that.



3 comments:

  1. Your house is beautiful. I'm rather fond of it and the people in it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Actually HGTV gives me courage. As in "Hey I could do that" if there's something I don't like in my house. Makes me realize very little in your house is permanent and unchangeable.
    I love Chip & Joanna! I joke that when I win the lottery, I'm going to hire them to design my dream home in the Hill Country (which would be an old fixer upper - not a new house - never a new house!)
    Your house is cute from the outside, and I'm sure the inside is fine too (you had me at hardwood floors). You should see my yard. It's a disaster - so many projects - so little time. Paging Yard Crashers... anyone? LOL.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is true for me too. Shows like this help me see "oh that isn't as big a deal as I thought...maybe I will bust down that wall someday" or "Hmm so that's about how much it costs to put all new siding on a house...that's not terribly outrageous." Gives a little hope! Now if only we had the time and money to DO those things. :-)

      Delete