Art and I have been watching reality TV shows that depict lots of young couples either building or renovating their “Forever Home”. It’s fun to see all the creative ways that clever designers and builders come up with to create what is deemed the perfect living space in which to raise families and someday, perhaps, welcome grandchildren. Personally, I could do without the nitty gritty details of dry rot and dead rodents, close-ups of old toilet bowl contents, and skip loaders plowing up tree roots and rocks. (Sometimes we just skip forward to the “big reveal” at the end of the show because the best part is seeing the happy reaction to the fulfillment of a dream!)
But lately, the shows are beginning to meld into one predictable demand: It can be summed up as “We want what we want when we want it, so give us a palace and make it snappy!” Don’t get me wrong – These are good people, and it is clear that they have worked hard and deserve to live well. But it’s all beginning to hit me as an exercise in entitlement – one calculated to make the home audience say, “Gee, maybe we ought to gut our home, too!” Imagine the billions spent at Lowes and Home Depot – without a second of paid ads!
So I have come up with an idea for a new HGTV reality show called, “You Can Live With It”!
In this show, I see a wise septuagenarian couple (suspiciously close in age to Art and me) tagging along with a 20-something-ish couple while they shop for their first home together. As the young people walk through the very decent but not entirely perfect homes with their elderly mentors, the young people might point to a kitchen countertop that’s seen better days and say, “Well, this whole kitchen has to be gutted!”. The gruff but kindly older man says, “Well, hold on a minute – That new quartz countertop alone is going to cost you upwards of $10,000.00. That’s enough to put your first-born through the first year of State college!” And then all four shout in unison, “You Can Live With It”! Or the young wife may look in the backyard and say, “It’s hot here in the summer. We’ll need to build a pool!” And the sweet grandmotherly woman might tap her on the shoulder and stage whisper, “A Pool?! Are you crazy?! The pool itself will set you back $70,000! To say nothing of the cost of maintenance and heating it! – And – You will need to build a fence so that your future toddlers can’t stumble into it by mistake! Over a lifetime, it’s more like $100,000.00!” And in chorus, everyone shouts “You can live with it!”
Then, in a pow-wow, all four put their heads together and plan for what can be accomplished with a deep cleaning, repairing any structural issues (You can’t live with those!) a little paint, a few plants, and a few strategically placed decorative pillows. We get to see all of those projects completed by the TV mom-and-dad couple along with the young’uns, and at the end of the show comes the “Big Reveal”, which shows the very same property, refreshed and cheerful.
They then sit down to discuss the money aspect of the home. They bought a “fixer-upper” instead of a new build, saving them tens of thousands of dollars. They then compare their original “wish list” and its cost to their actual project list and its cost, and they learn that they have saved enough money to put both their future children through college and set them up for their careers. Furthermore, they have a plan to take that money saved and invest it in sensible things like CDs, ETFs, and bonds. They calculate that, at the rate they’re going, they will be able to retire comfortably and buy a villa in Spain.
They all toast their success with glasses of Martinelli’s Apple Cider and once more shout, “You Can Live With It!”
I doubt most networks and streaming services would be interested in my idea – But I might think about pitching it to PBS.