After House Hunters and House Hunters International last night, Chris and I were watching Property Brothers and it was when we screamed in unison at the TV, “STOP IT WITH THE OPEN CONCEPT!” that I realized another blog post was in order.
Do you watch Property Brothers? It’s a show about — you guessed it — brothers, one of whom is a Realtor, the other who’s a contractor, and together they sell a fixer-upper house and then remodel it, with the (sometimes) help of whoever is purchasing it.
It’s set in Canada (at least, every single episode we’ve ever seen has taken place in Canada) and I really enjoy it. Here’s why:
Number one, when the brothers meet with the potential home-buyers, they always ask what’s on their wish-lists. Everyone is the same. They want a fully-upgraded kitchen, a huge master bedroom with an en suite, and an OPEN CONCEPT house. They also always want a bunch of other little stupid things, too, but the damn OPEN CONCEPT is always, always on the list. Canadian friends, are houses with an open floor plan that hard to come by in Canada? Please advise.
After getting a feel for the couple’s wish-list items, the brothers take them to the perfect house. It has everything they want! It’s got a fully-remodeled kitchen with granite counter-tops and stainless steel appliances! It has a dedicated office! Plenty of natural light! A finished basement! And it’s an OPEN CONCEPT home. *shiny beacon of light* AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH
And then comes the price-tag, which is ALWAYS well-over their budget. And the look of disappointment on the faces of these buyers is just so priceless. “What do you MEAN I have to pay over $1 million to get everything on my wish-list WHYYYYYYY?”
I just really like taking these jerks down a few pegs, you know?
After looking at a couple different homes — all of which come well within the budget, but definitely contain NO wish-list items, and also, hilariously, some definitely-don’t-want-ever items — the buyers narrow it down to two homes and the contractor brother uses his fancy computer skillz to mock up what he’d do to change it (always knocking down a wall or two to give them the coveted OPEN CONCEPT they’re after.)
After they make a decision, and after some wheeling and dealing by Realtor brother, they buy the house and get working.
Number two: This is my second-favorite part of the show, aside from the take-them-down-a-few-pegs part. This is where the prissy girls and the (okay, also prissy) guys have to wield a hammer and start demolition. I don’t know, there’s just something about watching some dude in flip-flops or a chick in full-on makeup squeal with delight as they kick in a wall.
The rest of the show is kind of boring: Demolition and remodel, sometimes asbestos or another problem that needs fixing, much stress on behalf of the buyer as their budget gets eaten up by things they didn’t expect (Hi, I am called Home Ownership, nice to meet you), and then we finally see the end result, which is, I must say, pretty fabulous.
Do you watch Property Brothers? What are your thoughts? Most importantly, who’s your favorite Property Brother, the slim-suited fellow or the flannel-shirted dude? (The flannel-shirted dude who’s also a MAGICIAN, thank you Google.)
Another Canadian-ism from that show is how they always want an “en-suite” to go with their “open concept.” So annoying.
(PS, I am personally a fan of the real estate Property Brother, although it would probably be handier to have the contractor Property Brother around the house.)
I do not watch but I will now.
Well, here’s the thing about open concept. Once LG starts to shake her tail feather and you’re tring to do, oh, ANYTHING? You sort of can’t, you need to have the kids within eyeshot for the most part in their early years. seems like lots of the buyers have young families. It seems to me that this show is shot in city neighborhoods where the houses are older and more chopped up and they have no sight line at all. Not to be on their sides becuause- HOLY CHRIST, enough. Those dudes are so hideous, I can hardly stand to watch. I just like the before and after’s I usually watch the first half, ff thur to the finished house.
Well now I’ll have to DVR this.
Also, I really like my open concept house. *Ducks*
I too love my open concept floor plan, and will probably never go back to a non-open-concept house. We recently saw a Property Virgins where they specifically DIDN’T want an open concept, and we were like, “What? Why? Open concept ROCKS!”
I haven’t seen Property Brothers recently enough to remember personalities but based on looks (I know, they’re twins, whatever) I have to go for the realtor guy. The contractor one, while I normally like longish hair and a 5:00 shadow, is just a little TOO long-and-shadowy. (However, on HGTV’s website there’s an outtake where they switch places and realtor guy puts on the flannel, and THAT’S what I want. The cleaner-cut guy in the sexy contractor work clothes.)
I love Property Brothers although I hate it when they buy a craphole house and then can only afford to renovate the living area & kitchen. Um….what about the disgusting upstairs?! I used to like flannel shirt brother until I discovered the magician info a few months ago……
They do really make the house gorgeous though- and they have great furniture taste in my opinion.
Damnit…it’s stuff like this that I most miss since giving up cable.
I’m a major fan of old houses so I’m used to living in a segmented house – I actually prefer it. I find when I’m in an open concept house I can’t concentrate. They’re great for parties, though. Our house sucks when we have more than 1 other family over. But, we just entertain in the warmer months when we can go outside. And my kids have survived via child proofing and uh, loving neglect…they kind of figure it out and I come if someone starts crying.
I grew up in a seriously open concept house. Apparently the people that built it had a deaf child, so the whole thing is designed for lots of visual contact for sign language. I definitely prefer it.
I don’t watch Property Brothers, but I do sometimes watch My First Place and the wish list always kills me. Space for entertaining! Stainless steel appliances! Ginormous master bedroom! (Do they want a bed and a whole living room set in there or what?) Super low budget!
WE LOVE THIS SHOW. Though, I cannot tell the brothers apart. Silly as they LOOK DIFFERENT. I just prefer to think of them as interchangeable.
I do love the part when they reveal the price tag of the dream home. I’m sorry, but these people are TOTAL IDIOTS if they think these houses are in their price range.
My house is not open concept, therefore it is apparently a shit-hole.
(Oh! P.S. my friends were on an episode of My First Place. They are pretty much the only people in the entire history of that show that did not annoy the hell out of me.)
Love this show! So I discovered today that they have some episodes condensed down to 30 min. Which rocks as my favorite part is the before and after.
Like Daisy, the rest of the house not being renovated often bugs me. What about the bedrooms??? Haha. Especially if they are under budget – I’m always like, “you have 20K more! do the bedrooms too!” I often wonder about these poor people and their beautiful dens/kitchens and terrible pink and blue 1940s bathrooms. Haha.
The other part that always cracks me up is how petulant the buyers are. “This house sucks. I could never see this house working.”
Whew. Much more than I initially meant to post about this show. But I do love it! 🙂
I’ve watched that show before, and am Canadian. From what I can tell while watching all those House Hunters/Property Virgins/I’m-too-dumb-and-whiny-to-buy-a-house shows it’s not JUST us who want the open concept. I personally am not a fan of it, I like the “old fashioned” style of house (as it’s known here) with separate rooms. However, Mike and I are in the second house we’ve built and we do build open concept homes – it’s what the people want! And I have to say it makes a small square footage seem much larger. It’s handy/annoying with kids, good to keep an eye on them while cooking, but OMG sometimes I want to eat an ice cream bar for breakfast and I have nowhere to hide!
I’ve never watched it so I can’t comment on which brother I like best. I will say that open concept houses are not that hard to find on the western side of Canada. It’s probably filmed back east in the older bit of Canada.
Is this yet another HGTV show? They’re based in TN and even though I have several friends who work there, I haven’t ever seen a single thing on the network! In fact, I don’t even know what channel it’s on. I fear now after househunting for seven months, I would get absolutely sucked into HHI and never leave the TV.