RicodJour wrote:
Default User wrote:

There was an early one, back when Bob Vila was the host, where the
renovated an old farmhouse for a young couple. The last few episodes,
you didn't see the homeowners any more, and at the end Bob sort of
casually mentioned that they'd planned to spend $100,000 and it had
been closer to $200,000. It came out in the paper later that the
homeowners were really steamed about the whole situation, 100 grand is
fair amount of money now, 15 years ago it was a LOT of money.

After that, it seemed like they emphasized sticking to the budget more.
I haven't watched the show in years, so I can't comment on how they do
it these days.


There were two others that got testy - the Salem house where the zoning
board made the homeowner cry, and the London townhouse where they had
to rebuild the newly installed steel roof structure due to some zoning
code or other and the budget got blown to hell and back.

I think they must write into the contract that for the owner to get the
discounts or freebies they have to smile for the camera.

I remember them both. In the case of the Salem house, a member of the
heritage board referred to the woman homeowner - who was several months
pregnant - as "waddling" into their town. I was sure someone was going
to get punched out after that incident. Of course the solution the show
had come up with to a rather serious parking problem was at best tricky
and at worst potentially dangerous.

The London apartment was a more inexcusable case. A British contractor
_should_ have known that there are severe restrictions as to what you
can do to a listed heritage building like the one they were working on
(probably class 2 - you can not alter the exterior of a class 1 building
at all). One of these is that you can't substantially alter building
profiles, but this designer decided "oh yeah, we can get away with not
replicating the original Mansard style roof and just put up what amounts
to a flat wall". Then to compound matters, nobody even bothered to wait
for planning approval. You can bet there were law suits ready to fly on
that one, particularly since one of the homeowners was a lawyer.

--
Brent McKee
My TV Blog -- http://childoftv.blogspot.com/

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