Is This The Most Middle Class Programme On Television?

[Arturo]

Your Home Made Perfect. On this BBC2 show, couples have to choose an architects design for 'renovating' their house. I say renovating, but the one of the two episodes I saw involved taking a nice, spacious enough property, and then spending over £50,000 to install a room specifically for Yoga and another extension for the clearly mid-life crisis male to play his drum kit. Cue lots of emotion and "we've been through so much". Yeah, course you have. Tough old world isn't it?

The other episode I saw was much the same vein, but ended with the couple installing a bathtub in the front room. Also, any show that features the phrases "Man Cave" and "Lady Lair" should be jettisoned before it even gets to air.

[Sits]

“Man cave” should carry a life sentence. Don’t forget “I’ll need a large garage to store my classic car”.

[diggedy derek]

I had to suffer Escape To The Chateaux today. Good god.

I do love The Repair Shop though. It's one of those programmes that is a treat just on a visual level.

[gt3]

Since lockdown 1.0 I have used the tv just to have something happening in my peripheral vision as it would if I was in the office. I find I am a huge fan of Homes Under The Hammer, Claimed & Shamed (less so), Close Call on Camera, Bargain Hunt, Doctors, Escape To The Country and yes, Repair Shop...I have these shows on all day with the sound off and sub-titles on. Has saved my sanity...

[hobbes]

I had to suffer Escape To The Chateaux today. Good god.

And yet I quite like the two main people in it. I especially like the way Angel takes a bit of paper and some glue and manufactures a wedding theme out of it. It's like why don't you for grown ups.

[sw2borshch]

Since lockdown 1.0 I have used the tv just to have something happening in my peripheral vision as it would if I was in the office. I find I am a huge fan of Homes Under The Hammer, Claimed & Shamed (less so), Close Call on Camera, Bargain Hunt, Doctors, Escape To The Country and yes, Repair Shop...I have these shows on all day with the sound off and sub-titles on. Has saved my sanity...

A couple of ex-colleagues went round a customer's house at the appointed time a few years back to interview him about his business affairs and he invited them in, asked them to make themselves comfortable on the sofa, and said, 'right lads, just in time for Homes under the Hammer, I never miss it, you don't mind if we watch this before we start, good' although I understand he did at least make them a cup of tea after it had finished.

[Hot Pepsi]

My doctor's office puts on HGTV in the waiting room. I'd prefer nothing, but if there has to be something, that's the most inoffensive thing imaginable. Better than fucking Fox News, which is sometimes on in certain businesses.

[diggedy derek]

Hobbes, that's a fair point re: the main couple in that show. It seems they're trying to make something better of their families lives, so there's that. I suppose I find myself like GBBO just not really caring much.

After it last night was a great Grand Designs episode pertinent to this thread. A millionaire couple built a huge castle-inspired complex of houses next to a moat with a tonne of polished marble and glass. The decor I have to say from my point of view was really horrendous. The guy almost broke his back doing it to match his self-imposed deadline of a year to build it. Then at the end, when asked about the cost, which was a million and a bit, he broke down crying because he'd come from nothing and achieved this enormously significant milestone which he'd always dreamed of doing for his family. It was really moving.

[Sits]

Presenting Britain’s Most Expensive Houses. Wall to wall bell ends.

[Mr Delicieux]

To add to the washing machine talk a few pages back, washing machines in the bathroom are standard here in Finland. There's a simple logic at play: the place where you clean your dirty body is a good place to also have your dirty clothes. Yes, I don't want my dirty pants anywhere near the food I'm preparing.
It makes sense, and I think it will eventually catch on in the UK. I'm basing that on how you'd see carpeted bathrooms up to the 1990's in England, a fact which horrified the French exchange student who came to stay with us in 1994.

[elguapo4]

Presenting Britain’s Most Expensive Houses. Wall to wall bell ends.

I love this. The houses are always incredibly tacky, overpriced, and they never sell. And there's always some young " billionaire" timewaster looking for a flat in central London, who you know isn't going to buy what they're shown.

[Fussbudget]

To add to the washing machine talk a few pages back, washing machines in the bathroom are standard here in Finland. There's a simple logic at play: the place where you clean your dirty body is a good place to also have your dirty clothes. Yes, I don't want my dirty pants anywhere near the food I'm preparing.
It makes sense, and I think it will eventually catch on in the UK. I'm basing that on how you'd see carpeted bathrooms up to the 1990's in England, a fact which horrified the French exchange student who came to stay with us in 1994.

Are you expecting the whole UK housing stock to be rebuilt with bathrooms big enough to accommodate a washing machine then?

The last place I lived (a newbuild flat) had carpeted bathrooms so I don't think they're extinct, I agree that they're pretty minging though

[Mr Delicieux]

Are you expecting the whole UK housing stock to be rebuilt with bathrooms big enough to accommodate a washing machine then?

The last place I lived (a newbuild flat) had carpeted bathrooms so I don't think they're extinct, I agree that they're pretty minging though

Yeah that was a bit of a confident prediction on my part eh... I'd be interested to see what the configuration of new builds in the UK are though.

Speaking of house builds, I had an interesting chat with a chap who worked in that field, and got onto the subject of mould in UK houses. He seemed to think that if you're to compare house builds in the UK to those in Europe, that they most closely resemble those in the south of France, which would explain a few things.

I'm amazed to hear that carpeted bathrooms remain in newer builds.

[WOM]

The community where I grew up has houses that currently sell for around $1.1....$1.5 million dollars pretty easily. Some bellend tore down a beautiful but unrestored mid century modern and put up a garish mansion...with a movie theater in the basement.

It's hideous and they're asking $3.888 million. It would probably fetch $2.5. Anyhoo, it's been languishing for over six months, and I've noticed that they haven't even finished the paving stone driveway and now there's weeds coming up all around. Someone is absolutely upside down on the deal and must be losing their shirt. My bet is a bank auction in the near future.

For US posters, the realtor's name is Freddy Mak, which I chuckled at.

[hobbes]

To add to the washing machine talk a few pages back, washing machines in the bathroom are standard here in Finland. There's a simple logic at play: the place where you clean your dirty body is a good place to also have your dirty clothes. Yes, I don't want my dirty pants anywhere near the food I'm preparing.

Do you cook remotely, then?

[Mr Delicieux]

In Finland, I cook in the kitchen, which does not have a washing machine in it, innit.

[WOM]

I think the 'logic' is that you place the machines near sources of water and drains. I don't think the 'logic' of food prep or body cleaning is much of a thing.

[Mr Delicieux]

I think the 'logic' is that you place the machines near sources of water and drains. I don't think the 'logic' of food prep or body cleaning is much of a thing.

Indeed. Over here, the washing machine water feed is in the bathroom, with larger apartments offering connections in both kitchen and bathroom, but I'm yet to see a washing machine in a kitchen in the 4 years I've been here.

[WOM]

I think someone once explained that while every house had a kitchen, not every one had an indoor bathroom...hence, the machine went in the kitchen.

[Mr Delicieux]

I hadn't even considered that, and yet there was the occasional outdoor toilet when I was growing up in the 80's, by which point was seen as a quaint thing which harked back to the good old days (according to my peers).

[Fussbudget]

French dwellings (even small flats) often have a separate laundry cupboard but having the washing machine in the kitchen isn't unusual either. The last place I lived in with my parents had both a washing machine and a dryer in the kitchen, and my mam would leave clean clothes to dry in the kitchen as well

[ursus arctos]

There was a time when acertain class of rather expensive Manhattan apartments were either built without kitchens entirely or with farcically limited cooking facilities adapted from those used on railways.

They all had bathrooms, though.

[Gangster Octopus]

We used to have one of those ceiling based drying racks in the kitchen. Did no-one ever used to sniff clothes?

[Lang Spoon]

Yeah that was a bit of a confident prediction on my part eh... I'd be interested to see what the configuration of new builds in the UK are though.

Speaking of house builds, I had an interesting chat with a chap who worked in that field, and got onto the subject of mould in UK houses. He seemed to think that if you're to compare house builds in the UK to those in Europe, that they most closely resemble those in the south of France, which would explain a few things.

I'm amazed to hear that carpeted bathrooms remain in newer builds.

I have yet to live in an apartment or house in Ireland unafflicted with some level of damp or mould, from 19th century terrace to Celtic Tiger vomited up "luxury apartment".

[Lang Spoon]

We used to have one of those ceiling based drying racks in the kitchen. Did no-one ever used to sniff clothes?

Ah the pulley! Haven't seen one of them in almost 40 years.