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jJim McLaughlin jJim McLaughlin is offline
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Default This Old [millionaires] House

hillacc at yahoo.com wrote:

On Oct 19, 11:03 am, "JoeSpareBedroom" wrote:

"Bill" wrote in message

...


I don't know about you, but these home improvement shows are WAY beyond my
budget lately.


I was watching This Old House last night and they had a $3000.00 plus
consultant hired in to study backyard water drainage and give
recommendations. Then they hired a crane to cut down a tree! (So they
could "lower" it down gently.) I'm sure that cost a pretty penny.


I just can't relate to these shows anymore so far as my home goes and my
budget. ($30,000.00 for a kitchen remodel, $60,000.00 to fix the place up
a bit, etc.)


Most people I know are hard pressed to come up with a few thousand dollars
for home projects...


I agree. Is that the show which sometimes goes to a "regular person's" house
to help out with a project, and it ends up being a custom carved teak mantle
found at an antique dealer in Tuscany, shipped by private yacht? :-)

Every time I look at my bathroom sink, whose replacement will involve 400
steps because of the stupid counter design, I think about writing to
whatever show it is and telling them I have a budget of $702.18, and not a
penny more.



There are two different parts to the This Old House show: The
"regular" This Old House, in which they come in and redo a house, and
the on the road part where they help someone with a single project.

The first one is necessarily expensive, because they only do houses
that need a lot of work and have a lot of potential, for owners who
have the budget to do it. After all, it would be pretty boring show
if it was This Old House: For the next several weeks, we'll follow
Joe Shmo as he repaints his front porch the quickest way with the
cheapest paint and supplies he can find.

I find the on the road segment often has ideas that I can use, such as
how to repair a squeeky floor without lifting or damaging the carpet.
Yeah, it takes the purchase of a special tool, but so do lots of home
repair projects. Last night, they showed how to replace an old cast
iron toilet flange so the toilet won't rock on a newly installed
floor. Not very glamorous or expensive, but lots of tips about why it
had to be done the way it was done and something I might very well
face in my own house someday. And trust me, I don't think anyone is
more low-budget (or less handy) than I am when it comes to home
repair!

Jo Ann


When TOH first started 30 plus years ago, Russ Morash was not so
greedy, and
WGBH was a simple local public tv station in the Brighton neighborhood
of Boston,
not a mega provider of content to PBS.

The first TOH project was a smple house in Dorchester, Mass., not far
from where
I lived, and it was a simple and do able budget.

TOH has evolved and not for the better.

The Ask TOH spin off is the only thing from the franchise worth watching.