Man, there’s nothing I like more than tea, so you can imagine how thrilled I was when I saw that someone on Reddit asked about home makeover show nightmares.
From botched renovations to bad workmanship, these stories will have you thinking twice about going on a home show. Don’t worry, though — there are some good stories, too!
1. Apparently, this was the way most of the makeovers went:
“Friends were on a show a few years ago. It was super intense 3 weeks of filming and the redesign looked great on camera,” user 12fingertips wrote .
Ah yes, don’t they always.
However, the reality was much worse.
“In reality it was literally things stuck together with staples and tape. After the show my friend took 2 weeks off work to rebuild everything properly.”
What a waste of time.
2. This *Extreme Makeover* home was Extremely Bad.
“They did one here in my town (won’t say for privacy) and my brother, a builder was approached to help build a home in the dead of winter. Bros [ sic ] couldn’t help but our friends — the neighbors to the home — volunteered and the home was completed in one week,” one person wrote .
The show took no responsibility for the state of the home.
“In heavy rain, and cold, they built it, and now the home has any number of problems too. The owner went back on Extreme Makeover to fix everything, and was told, ‘you got this for free, fix it yourself.'”
3. This person actually had a positive story to share!
“It’s not a house, but a local place was on Bar Rescue a few years back. Overhauled the entire interior,” beaunerjams16 said .
The restaurant, SRO Bar & Grill, had a softball field attached to it.
The restaurant is a success!
“They renamed the place Boulder Lodge. About 9 months later they went back to the old name but kept most of the interior designs and food/menu. It’s still running and largely seems better than it was before the rescue.”
4. This person’s sister got a friggin’ weird room.
“My sister’s master bedroom got a makeover on a ‘surprise your spouse’ show. The designer was going for an ‘Arabian nights’ romantic vibe but it ended up pretty weird looking with all the closets hidden behind yards of draped fabric,” user RealLivePersonInNC shared .
They removed it all and painted it neutral colors.
“They also took the ceiling fan out and replaced it with a giant tree branch wired up with twinkling lights. Not too long afterwards half the lights went out and it was too hot in the room without the fan, so that got put back as well.”
However, they enjoyed the experience.
“On the bright side it didn’t cost them anything and was a fun experience, and they got a couple of new furniture pieces out of it but in the end they didn’t keep any of it the same.”
5. A widow was given a house on *Extreme Makeover* but couldn’t keep it.
“Even though the house was ‘given’ to her, she couldn’t afford it after a year or so (property tax, electricity, water, upkeep, etc…) and put it on the market. Simply owning a home of that size is very expensive and she couldn’t afford it,” DryProperty wrote .
6. The corporations who “volunteered” their workers didn’t exactly pay them to work.
“I worked for a large corporation that tried to force us to volunteer (unpaid) for this show.
“It was basically mandatory that we show up and do manual labor (again, unpaid) so that our employer would look good, and so Extreme Home Makeover , also a for-profit show, didn’t have to pay for unskilled labor,” mynonymouse revealed .
7. *Love It or List It* might actually be legit.
“My friend was on Love It Or List It . She said that they did great quality work at a fraction of what it would have normally cost (the homeowners in this show have to pay for the renovations),” ylzz said .
8. However, *Property Brothers* is reportedly kind of a nightmare.
“My countertop company was hired to fix cabinets and countertops for a house after a Property Brothers episode. Like I’ve seen others comment, the show filmed around all the problem areas so on the episode looked great,” willonding wrote.
Way to go, Drew and Jonathan.
“The homeowners were livid after the show just picked up and left and we were stuck dealing with them. Not a fun few weeks.”
That doesn’t sound fun. At all.
9. *Extreme Makeover* definitely didn’t care much about the whole tax issue.
“I interned for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in the early 2000s. Yes, their taxes go through the roof. Tons of the families on it end up selling everything that was put in the house (computers, appliances, etc) to help pay the property taxes,” former intern tsthedurf wrote.
And those free vacations? They weren’t optional.
“The dad of [a] family also lost his job because of the mandatory vacation to Disneyland. He tried to work something out with both the production company and his job, but neither would budge. If they wanted the house makeover, he had to leave with his family [so] the show could get fun family vacation shots.”
10. Themed rooms age as well as you’d expect them to.
“Their son was 6ish years old and really into trains, so he got an insanely train themed room, complete with a ride-on train that chugged slowly on a track around the room. It was great at first, but he outgrew it really quickly and was embarrassed by his train room within a few years.”
The rest of the house wasn’t much better.
“The house looked great on TV but IRL it looked a little tacky and unconventional (such as novelty-themed bathrooms with no cabinet space),” rp1995 revealed.
Imagine being 16 with a train-themed room. Oh my god. The humiliation.
11. Some of those shows aren’t big on quality work.
“FIL is a contractor. His team helped with a build for a home makeover show shooting in Las Vegas.
“He said they were told to work fast & cheap, which throws quality out the window,” jayelache wrote.
Wait, it gets worse!
“There would also be moments where the crew would finish something, then the producers would bring in the “volunteers” to hammer the last nail and act like they did the project.”
12. This person stayed in a room that was redone by “Hotel Hell.”
“It was poorly done. The paint lines were terrible and some of it was on the ceiling. The decorations they used seemed like just really cheap stuff…They didn’t touch the out-of-date bathroom, but they didn’t put that part on the show.”
I can’t believe Gordon Ramsay let me down like this.
“The hotel also didn’t keep the fancy linens in that room because I’m sure that was a pain to wash and keep track of one special set of linens. Basically, it looked great on camera, but in person it did not look professionally done.”
