Room for improvement ... and lots of it.

[Sir Stinkalot]

Fortunately I usually play squash on Tuesday nights but this week it was moved to Monday, this left the evening with little to do. After venturing out to the garage in the freezing cold for a short period of time I chose to watch some of that high class Australian television that this country is world famous for. To my shock and dismay I stumbled across a program called ….. “Room for improvement” ….. oh my (insert religious figure of choice). This seems to be a show where they give no talent hacks thousands of dollars to destroy some ones dream home. The unfortunate family to feature in this episode where looking at doing up their kitchen …. they had purchased some Smeg appliances (Very nice start) but ran out of money before they could complete the job. This so called group of experts came into this poor mans house …. destroyed his kitchen … and then only left him with $350 to fix it up again. There was a lamp made out of an arrangement of old bowls, tacky multi coloured splashback, an artists rendition of an egg plant that looked like a discoloured Mr Blobby. The cupboards were made out of assorted off cuts of MDF and ply, and the host proceeded to destroy a Kauri pine workbench by filling holes with discoloured resin. Please do not make me relive the curtains ….

I normally don’t mind a diy type of show … they can give the novice some decorating ideas and the more developed viewers, like those who frequent this BB, some insight into different ideas that may not have resisted before …. but this …. this mindless dribble did not show the viewer any interesting techniques, any new and interesting products, nor produce and acceptable result for the home owner in my opinion. Lets hope for my sake squash is back on for next Tuesday.

Too much room for improvement

Ps: It is interesting to see on their site that they do not allow a larger image of the disaster that they created ….. I wonder why.

This is Stinky signing out from another critical television review.

[journeyman Mick]

Ha! you think that's bad, I just turned off the TV, there was a drove of "celebrities" (or is it a gaggle, a mob or a murder? not sure of the collective noun for "celebrities") who with the help of the SES and St John's Ambulance (no doubt there to patch up all those injured during the proceedings) were going to totally renovate a families house and yard. I mean totally! New roof, windows, outside render, inside plasterboard & paint, kitchen, landscaping etc etc. It looked like they were (thankfully) using a lot of contractors as well. I wonder how many people out there in DIY land think that you can actually put gyprock up, tape and set the joints (3 coats min.) and paint it (3 coats min.) all in 48 hours and actually get a decent job? I think this type of show has a lot to answer for in regards to people having accidents (personal injury types, not interior decorating ones!), a rise in bad taste and tradespeople being badgered to do jobs faster and cheaper because that's how it's done on TV. I watch this type of program occasionly for my "righteous indignation" fix, or some "hysterical disbelief" but this one was just too much. I'd like to see what happens if I try to start a job before 7am and run past 5pm, or park a 6M skip in the middle of the road, or place materials all over the footpath, nature strip and road, or rig up huge spot lights so work can continue on well into the night. Or have so many people on site (which BTW was a total quagmire) that it was totally congested and unsafe. The council, EPA, Workplace Health and Safety and Police would be down on me like a ton of bricks:mad: I think its pretty irresponsible for these people to work in a manner which promotes poor, rushed workmanship, with unsafe practices and outside of normally accepted safety and amenity guidlines. Anyway, that's my spleen vented!

Mick

[Dean]

Room For Destruction...

yeah I have never liked one of their renovations....
Makes me wonder about their skills also.
I would never let that mob into my home.

In fact, I would never let any of them near my place, except maybe Backyard Blitz, because they seem to know what they are doing and don't come up with crummy, retro, crap designes that may be in fashion now, but next week will bring horror to the faces of the majority of humans on the planet

[DanP]

Stinky,

These shows seem to have a passion for MDF and when they do use real timber they invariably destroy it by painting it purple or some other equally gaudy colour. Oh well, I s'pose that's what you get when you have sexually challenged blokes (read gay) 'designing' your decor.

Dan

[q9]

collective noun for "celebrities"

May I suggest "clot" - hinders proper flow, and tends to attract more and more gunk, making the clot bigger.

[craigb]

Atually I think these shows are a conspiracy on the part of the MDF manufatcurers so that they can sell more of their product

I've only seen that show once - last week as it happens - where they "did over" a room in a recording studio. They made a "sofa" out of MDF which took two big blokes to move. Then there was the "sideboard" made out of 25 mm MDF. I can imagine how heavy that must of been.

But as you say, above all its the mindless inanity of this show that really grates.


Craig.

[Eastie]

I flicked past one of the shows last night – on the second rating channel I think. In the blink of an eye I was shocked at what was happening.

A labourer, minus a hard hat, working at 2+ metres below ground level between an unsupported excavation one side and a retaining wall the other. To top it off an excavator had been placed on the edge of the cut, creating the greatest possibility of killing the stupid idiot down the trench by either cave in or actually hitting the aforementioned idiot with the bucket.
This type of work practice can readily compared to some of the third world working conditions photographed by the world health organisation.

This comes one month after a similar show depicted two clowns in a second floor unit standing in an open window void – minus any form of guardrail.
I hope WorkSafe will be investigating.

To anyone who bitches and moans at the government and industry bodies for supporting mandatory owner builder registration and education – go kill yourself elsewhere, the building industry doesn’t need another statistic.
----------------
PS Mick, you hit the nail on the head. I wonder how much they pay to get around federal, state and local laws, not to mention the insurance and defects that must come from such a slapdash operation.

[craigb]

There is one makeover program worth watching. This Old House which is on Foxtel. This American program uses tradsemen to do the work usally after an architect has come up with a plan and the project runs over several months. It even has his Normness doing his thing
It would be good if one of the stations did an Aussie version of it as an antidote to the crappy MDF shows.

[ndru]

I agree that TOH is an interesting show. Call me sick but I especially enjoy watching Tom Silva and Norm Abrams discuss some of the finer points of structural work. I found Steve Thomas pretty annoying but he did add some spirit to the show - I believe a new host has joined the team.

Unfortunately a lot of the work on TOH doesn't apply to Australian conditions or the materials they use isn't readily available here. Also, the cost of the some of the rennovations they do is are astronomical. I recall seeing one show where they laid new stair runners using William Morris designed carpet and had an acoustical consultant design the main living room!

It would be nice to see an Australian show that was a little more upmarket, didn't paint everything in this year's fashion colours or use ugly backyard artwork, and showed some of the warts and all complexities of rennovations (eg new plumbing in bathrooms, laying a slab, etc). Hopefully this would "educate" a lot of people on what they can realistically achieve on their own without creating an eyesore. Fat chance in this era of lowest-common-denominator TV!:mad:

[Iain]

One point that most seem to have overlooked is that some misguided, benevolent (or could be Manevolent) friend/relative gets you away for the weekend and when you come home 'Surprise!'.
If my lot ever do it they will be disinherited:mad:

[Dean]

Yeah I often wonder if the day after the cameras leave, the people who own these houses think that the renovation is the ugliest/crappiest looking job they had ever seen. Of course, they wouldn't ever say that on camera, or show it on TV even if they did.

[craigb]

At the risk of sunding like I watch a lot of these things, I have seen on the pommy version of Changing rooms one of the punters express their disgust at the awful hideousness served up by the "designer". Not that the TV people gave a rats of course - after all they didn't have to live with it, but it did make a pleasent change from the usual "oh, it's just fantastic" response.

Cheers
Craig

[averack]

I love TOH and like NRDU thought that the products they use are not available here. Well not all maybe but some of them. A couple of months back they showed a plumber using a plastic pipe joined with a crimping tool. Neat stuff I thought and then a couple of weeks later whilst checking out a new unit under construction guess what they were using for pipes! Yep they were using crimped connections, quick and easy to install.

Oh, and that house on TOH where they were building the concert room had a renovation budget of US$1.5m and to save money the owners stripped the windows in the conservatory by hand rather than spend $80 each. I think the reason for doing themselves had more to do with the wood becoming furry after being dipped in acid so they got a better result doing themselves. I don't think money was the real issue.

Like others I find the Australian renovation shows extremely tacky and whilst the surprised (or should that be shell shocked?) owners express how wonderful it is I think the look of horror on their faces give it away. If someone did that to me I would demand compensation and professionals paid to rectify their work.

You will notice of course that the figures they quote is for cost of materials only. They don't factor in the cost of skilled tradesmen. For example the flat pack kitchen they put in this week was $4,500 which is a lot of melamine and don't get me started on the fact that with one hour to go they installed the sink, dishwasher, oven and stove top!!!!!

[gold leader]

Yeah I've seen many an episode of the English version where at least one of the participants didn't like the result. And the opinion of the designers? "Oh, you have no taste, you don't know what you're talking about"
Oh to be on such a high pedestal.....

[journeyman Mick]

Averack, that "crimp together plumbing" is Polybutylene, come in a few different brands, including two that push together. It will handle hot water, you just need 1M of copper out of the HWS, BUT rats love chewing the stuff. It's actually more expensive than copper fittings but you save on labour. IMHO there's only two applications it should be used in: bore water areas where the water corrodes copper and inside aluminium boats where the copper corrodes the aluminium.
I also thought that $4500 was a lot for a flat pack, I've done complete supply and installs for not much more.
It would be nice to see these shows actually taking on an educational role rather than just "look everybody, this is how much can be done with a swag of money in not much time at all". But like you say ndru, it's lowest common denominator TV. Makes me wonder how those people can get up and go to work in the morning. I know I find it extremely hard to be motivated to do crap, no matter how well I'm paid. But I must admit I do enjoy watching them occasionly, if only to laugh in disbelief.

Mick