In with the Old

After lots of lip service to the original beauty of historic houses, most of the owners in this series proceed to destroy them with cheesy modern finishes and design choices. (OMG, what is with painting houses black?!) There are a few exceptions, but mostly I found it sad and disappointing. I would give it a pass.

I have watched much of the series and enjoyed it, but when I hit the Maine episode, I was appalled by the relentlessly self-congratulatory city couple. "Look at me! Look at my stuff! I'm a genius! This laundry room paint makes me look luminous!" Please.

The space was lovely, but so over-filled with matching posey pots and "merchandising,"...These are sort of people who move to the "country" and collectively drive up real estate prices and demand urban services and goods.

I embrace the preservation and renovation of old buildings, unfortunately it sometimes falls to moneyed jerks. Perhaps choose renovators with a good deal more personal appeal.

Great work but colors are not best. The wallpaper in the brick house was off and bad. Mustard paint in foyer was not period so learn to ask a designer. Interesting show though.

I would watch it more if Magnolia shows it as paying for it could be a bit much. Better choices hopefully in the color choices and not just her preference if she is the only one to do the show. I did watch only one show.

I just found this show and see that's it's not even on demand. I hope the powers that be aren't going from the single review before mine to base their decision on whether or not to renew this show. I watch a LOT of these home improvement shows, and honestly this is the second one only that has a couple where I enjoy both of their personalities! I also love the show Home Town. It's difficult to watch shows where people are yelling at each other or are so hard-core that you can't follow how to do a project on your own. I really enjoyed that they explored the history and spoke to the people of the town about the house they were working on. And I really liked their easy-going personalities and they are obvious joy for what they choose to do for a living. Now that this is Magnolia Network, they are probably testing new shows right and left. But this is a keeper!

And BTW, PLEASE bring back at least one landscape show. There are zero on the air!

The first two seasons were a breath of fresh air because it was every day people who were passionate about history and wanted to update the home to look like the home it was originally and stay true to the history, with a few upgrades in functionality for modern convenience. The third season is almost an advertisement for professionals, where they want an old home and make it modern, which seems to go against the title of the series, with the exception of Jeff Devlin, as he does respect the history and does it professionally and has a show that highlights it. Making old homes modern is a delicate balance, which most people get. Hopefully season 4 will go back to that.

While this show doesn't show the slow, arduous process and pitfalls, they do acknowledge the drudgery of it multiple times. Old homes are hand built and there wasn't standards like today, but that's what gives them character. This show does a decent job highlighting that.

The show is nicely paced, the hosts are the homeowners, and it's divided into 3 distinct sections. It's a calm show to watch on weekends, though hearing more about the history would be nice.