You remember Vanilla Ice? The white rapper famous for the 1990s hit “Ice Ice Baby”? Well, who knew the rest of the story? Vanilla Ice, whose real name is Rob Van Winkle, has become a very savvy home builder and investor during the past decade in South Florida, where he lives with his wife and…
I’m sitting here watching Professional Grade on HGTV and I must say, it’s painful. I’m watching a mother and daughter work on their kitchen and there’s a big chance they will hurt themselves. They’ve never done any kind of remodeling work before and they’re taking down a wall, adding new counters, moving appliances, tiling a backsplash,…
One day, when I wasn’t looking, my once-charming front porch went from shabby chic to just plain disgusting. I waited for the crew from HGTV’s Curb Appeal to show up. When they didn’t come, I decided to take on the job. Here’s the porch I started with: As you can see, I had many challenges:…
Lately I've developed an unhealthy obsession with HGTV's House Hunters. I say it's unhealthy because I spend way too much time on my rear end watching one House Hunters episode after another. And that's time I could be using more productively. To help ease this obsession, I thought it might help if I listed everything…
Last night, on HGTV’s “Design Star,” the three judges agreed this was the strongest group of finalists they’d seen yet. I agree. And I wondered if they might just give all three finalists — Matt, Trish and Jennifer (seen here) — each their own show and be done with it. But the competition must continue,…
I’ve watched several episodes of “Rate My Space” with Angelo Surmelis on HGTV and I’m quite impressed. Here’s how it works: The homeowners who are the subjects of each episode have gone onto the Rate My Space website, posted photos of a room that needs help, and made a plea for help. Typically they can’t…
Sunday evening, after watching the "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" team blow up a house with a radon issue, I began thinking about the whole concept of the show. When the series began in 2003, I thought the idea was to give houses a makeover. But as I would learn, it’s really about annihilating the old…
As much as I regret missing "60 Minutes," I will do so this evening in order to catch the two-hour season finale of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," which begins at 7 p.m. (6 p.m. CST) on ABC. This show is the culmination of a 50-state tour by the Extreme crew, and storm-torn southern Louisiana seems…
This was supposed to be a review of the new HGTV show "Myles of Style," hosted by Kim Myles, who won the Design Star 2 competition and was rewarded with her own show. I say this was "supposed" to be a review because I missed the premiere Sunday night. It seems my satellite TV service…