I don’t know about you, but for me personally, watching home makeover shows and videos on YouTube is an oddly satisfying (and, at times, even therapeutic) activity. There’s something super exciting about witnessing a not-so-nice-looking house or a room turn into a space that could be easily pictured in the IKEA catalogue.
But here’s a question—have you ever wondered what happens with those stunning-looking houses after the show ends? Do they manage to conquer the challenge of time? Let’s find out! A few weeks ago, a Reddit user @akumamatata8080 invited all the people who have ever been on a similar kind of show to share how their homes are holding up now. Spoiler alert: the question received some truly intriguing stories.
With that being said, Bored Panda invites you to find out how these redditors’ spaces are doing now after being a part of a home renovation show.
My parents (and me, as a baby) were on a home renovation show called Makeover Wish. You would send in a heartfelt story and they would choose you and come renovate your house for you and leave it a complete surprise for you. About 6 or 7 years before I was born (I’m 15 now), one of my mother’s kidneys were failing. She was in the hospital constantly got extremely sick, and lost vision in both her eyes. My dad, being the hero he is, decided to donate one of his kidneys. Although it’s not too rare for people to donate kidneys nowadays, back then this was a huge deal and there’s been several news paper articles and news broadcasts about their story. My parents ended up winning the Makeover Wish renovation for our house. The episode is actually on YouTube. Search “Makeover Wish: The Donor” (I have a cameo in it). Apart from the master bedroom, everything is pretty much the same and we’ve lived here ever since, and I hope to for years to come.
Friends were on a show a few years ago. It was super intense 3 weeks of filming and the redesign looked great on camera. 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.
I work for a high end custom home builder. I’ve signed NDAs so I can’t say who we’ve built for but let’s just say we’ve built for the owners of…..Smunder Sharmor and the owner of….shmamazon. And even with the type of work we do where everything is top notch materials and craftsmanship, we still have to go back year after year to fix things. Houses settle, paint cracks, home owners drop things on tile floors etc. and these are houses that take us THREE YEARS ATLEAST to build from the ground up or renovate. I can’t stand those shows who “remodel” in like 2 weeks lol there’s just no way to do so without issues down the line.
My family was on a home renovation show when I was a kid, in the late 90s early 2000s. I think it was Changing Rooms or possibly another show by the same cast and producers. It was one of those shows where they do 3 rooms in the house and mine was one of the rooms they decorated. It looked so pretty, they decorated it to look like a fairy woodland with huge tree murals on the walls and a nights sky of stars hanging from the ceiling. But it held up really badly, all the murals on the wall peeled off and it looked bad pretty quickly. I had fun shooting the show though and it was a cool story to tell my friends at school.
Remember “Extreme Makeover?” A show where they build or hugely remake a home for a needy person/owner?
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 couldn’t help but our friends-the neighbors to the home, volunteered and the home was completed in one week.
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.”
Plumbing and remodeling company I work for did plumbing for an HGTV show about 10 years ago. We did the hook ups for the new laundry room. The homeowners picked some fancy Moroccan tile for the floors at some upscale NYC boutique and the host of the show decided it would look better without grout…which went about as well as you’d expect.
Filming wrapped, and we were called back out a few weeks later to replace the fancy tile that immediately chipped and became dangerous with some boring tile. Had to sign NDAs, etc.
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. The homeowners were livid after the show just picked up and left and we were stuck dealing with them. Not a fun few weeks
I stayed in a room that was made over on 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 from TJ Maxx (not really hotel quality stuff.) They didn’t touch the out-of-date bathroom but they didn’t put that part on the show. 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.
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. They took it all down and painted the room a neutral color within months. 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. 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.
I was on Listed Sisters on HGTV about 3 years ago on Season 2. It’s been great. The quality of work held up and it is still pretty stylish. I moved so I Airbnb the house now and the HGTV aspect seems to sell it well. Nothing bad to say at all. HGTV chipped in for some repairs as well since my ceiling fell in during the reno.
I was on a remodel show – the theme was laundry makeover in 48 hours. 2 different houses with different laundry room layouts, 2 different designers.
Our designer was also the person doing all the construction work. She had good ideas and was very ambitious for the short time frame. They had us help. My wife and I were working pretty much dawn until 1am both days. I was exhausted and a had some complaints about the extremely poor workmanship and shortcuts they were taking. They acted like I was some jerk because of it.
They also cut drywall out and soffit as part of their idea and had electrical in the way they didn’t expect. I had to hire an electrician that my contractor knew to reroute the wires and install new lights, and we negotiated they do free of charge for credits on the show.
After production they never credited the electrician and pretended they didn’t know about it after I called them out on it.
Had to have drywall person fix stuff, carpenter had to finish the wood accent wall (they only did part of the wall that was in view of the camera), had to have painters finishing painting, etc.
Was “free” but cost me more money and work to finish it the right way.
My sister had her bathroom remodeled for a show. They took two back to back ancient 1970s styled bathrooms and made one giant bathroom with a walk in, no door shower and a bathtub that fills from a faucet in the ceiling and marble sinks. They paid for all the materials while the show paid for the design and labor. Still the show said “you have to buy these two sinks. Uh, they are $1500 each. …. “yes buy them”.
She did further renovations later, but rents that house out now because they bought a new place. I think the bathroom certainly brought a wow factor from the renters. If it were me, having two back to back bathrooms with updated fixtures and paint would be worth a lot more than one giant bathroom with separate walk in shower, huge 50 gallon tub and a single toilet (and two marble sinks) because practically speaking only one person can use that at a time and it feels like you’re pooping in a living room or something, it’s so big.
In any case, I think the renovation certainly added appeal and value to the house for sure.
Please, you guys complaining about bad fixes!
I live in Brazil, when they did this to a house here in my city, not two days later the house was entirely ROBBED hahaha
That’s what you get broadcasting on national TV all the expensive eletronics you’ve put in a house from a dangerous periferic neighborhood…
The show was whatever Luciano Huck’s show called it.
A family member of mine was on a DIY show called Turf Wars. They basically come in and remodel your and a neighbors backyard and then have a “vote” to see who wins the remodel. The show itself was pretty clear cut, they would come in and give a bunch of orders, take some “candid” shots of work being done and then hang around letting the owner and contracting crew do the work. The hosts were pretty friendly but just kind of gave orders. The voting though was kind of a joke. They had people from the neighborhood come and check out the backyards at different times and one of the yards was inspected in perfect conditions to let the decor shine with the other was just quickly given a walkthrough. Both of the yards honestly looked great but the winning house (neighbor, not family member) had been in the neighborhood for a few years while my family had recently moved in so weren’t well known. The problem was the neighbor had a really large centerpiece to their backyard remodel that was a little impractical for the smallish backyard they had, and there was hardly any covered sitting areas so if the weather wasn’t great (and it’s not that great haha) it wasn’t a comfortable area to sit around and either get baked by the sun or rained on.
Less than a year later the centerpiece was removed and the pond cemented over as it was too much upkeep and their backyard fell back to just a cement block, while my family still had the whole backyard setup there as it was much more practical. They kept it until they moved out about 3-4 years later, not sure if still around but would be surprised if it was removed at all.
Extreme Makeover came to my town in like 2013-14, and did a demolition and new build of a house for my family friends. Luckily, they had the means to keep the house (property taxes went WAY up). It’s still a really nice house, and a few people I know have even gotten married there. The house held up super well.
There was this construction company that did a yearly challenge where they’d attempt to make an entire neighborhood in 12 hours or something like that. It was extolled as a masterpiece of planning and coordination.
When in actuality the houses were assembled horribly. Sewage backups were common, severe foundation cracking within the first year was pretty much guaranteed (they used special quick-set cement and then further encouraged it to speed up in various ways), just all sorts of horror.
Extreme Home Makeover redid a house in my neighborhood when I was in high school. The family had to move out a year or so later because they couldn’t afford to pay the upkeep and taxes on it.
Friends of mine, parts of their house were redone by a tv show. It looked pretty good and they were happy with the result. Only thing is that they didn’t get to keep all the decorations. They were put there for the shots and they could buy them at a discounted price.
This reminds me of an episode of I think it was DIY SOS, where they redone this womans bedroom and kept referring to it as a boudoir, they done it up like, you ever see the film moulin rouge? like that kind of setup.
The woman absolutely f****** hated it, probably one of the few times I’ve ever seen someone not just “smile and nod” at the monstrosity they did.
I also heard “pimp my ride” was a f****** scam basically, all the LCD tvs and the REALLY expensive s*** they put in those cars? took them right back out
I plumbed a house that was getting an HGTV remodel. Long story short: they cut more corners than the contractors already want to and that’s saying a lot. I would never buy a house remodeled on one of those shows.
A house a couple blocks away from me was renovated by that Extreme Home Makeover about 16 years ago. The landscaping is still nice, the wood fence is starting to show a little wear, but the owners seem to take good care of it. I don’t know what the interior looks like, of course, but from the outside it still looks pretty good.
A couple of years ago, my family was on a home renovation show. It’s a small one, made by Lowes, but they do a good job. My family had a friend who knew the head engineer, and he hooked us up with a free kitchen makeover. It was beautiful. In over 3 years, kitchen is holding up nicely. The paint is peeling a bit, but it’s still great, and i’m incredibly greatful for it.
I did this ~15 years ago. Condo in LA.
Can’t remember the name of the show. They were advertising on Craigslist.
The quality of the renovations and furnishings was extremely subpar. They wanted to have everything done within 48 hours.
Years later, I’ve come to understand that remodels take months, not days.
We had to eventually redo everything.
Boyfriends brother got a kitchen makeover form HGTV. They left behind the light bulbs used the lighting and most of the work was cheap material. Kitchen fell apart a year later.
I knew a guy who was part of one of these shows back when we were in middle school together. His family was extremely white trash and drug addict types, but they got all cleaned up for the show. Within the first year after the makeover, the house was a pit again.
My brothers house was on one of these shows. The light fixtures and such that were in the house were hideous and they renovated to their liking but yeah…it wasn’t their taste 🙂
I know a local house was featured on a show it was sold and rerenovated for some reason the next time it sold after that they still had the pre renovation photos included in the listing. I’m guess they thought it would help with the price like look this house is famous, but just looked confusing. It’s not for sale now so no photos up.
