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Archive through November 17, 2003

The TVClubHouse: Other Reality Shows: Archives for 2004-1: House Rules (TBS): Archive through November 17, 2003 users admin

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Alexia

Friday, October 10, 2003 - 5:45 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Is anybody else watching this show? Looks like its gonna be a good one :)

Alexia

Friday, October 10, 2003 - 6:28 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
So far the only thing I don't like about this show is all the friggin Lowe's commercials! I mean the store's in the show's title, its mentioned every other sentence so do we really need practically every other commercial to be Lowe's??? Commercials are annoying enough already!

Kappy

Friday, October 10, 2003 - 7:16 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Lol, Alexia ~ I know what you mean about the Lowe's commercials. Yes, I'm watching this one, though I missed the first half tonight. I'm a sucker for the thought of a dream house as a prize.

Right now, I'm wondering what happens to the other two houses afterwards? Will Lowe's sell them? And what if the people screw up the work really bad? Do they have to get the usual inspections and approvals before moving on to various steps of projects? Are they going to compete for things like 'real' beds?

Alexia

Friday, October 10, 2003 - 7:34 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
From the season previews it looks like they do get "real' beds at some point, and I am pretty sure that the other people they showed are contractors of some sort so maybe they are doing the inspections? *shrug*

Pbnj

Saturday, October 11, 2003 - 8:03 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
this sounds like a cool show...when is it on? I'm on the east coast so eastern time zone....guess I could check the listings!

re: product placement or the constant mention of Lowes. I read on a board somewhere that more and more shows are getting their advertising dollars this way because people are flipping off commercials (surfing during comm. breaks to avoid them) so advertisers have figured out a way to keep us captive...make it part of the show...grrr

Kstme

Saturday, October 11, 2003 - 8:10 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Because the dh was working last night, I watched this. I'm not sure if I'll continue or not. The part that had me in stitches was the announcement regarding Bank of America. They are going to give $50,000 to the winner...hhhmmmm...let's see, after paying the taxes on that, will there be enough to pay the taxes on the 'new' home?? This could be a 'costly' show for the winner, IMO!

Texannie

Saturday, October 11, 2003 - 8:15 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Oops..I just started another thread about this cause I didn't see one! (Mods, can you either move or delete it?)
I was watching and started recognizing stuff and realized it was filming here!! LOL The houses are in a burb about 30 miles west of me.
10300%2C00.html,http://tbssuperstation.com/Series/House_Rules/Show/0,,10300,00.html

Kstme

Saturday, October 11, 2003 - 1:12 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Texannie, too bad you can't find the homes and see who's living in them. LOL That would tell us who won...unless, they aren't allowed to 'move in' until after the show airs.

Texannie

Saturday, October 11, 2003 - 2:49 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Hmm...don't know. I haven't really seen that much press about it round here..will have to check it out.

Texannie

Saturday, October 11, 2003 - 3:17 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
OK..found an article..guess I skimmed Thursday's paper! LOL
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ae/tv/2145516

Oct. 9, 2003, 5:04PM

Katy-area home renovation reality TV series begins Friday
By MIKE McDANIEL
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
KATY -- Rain was coming down in a torrent, but that was no reason to stop working. Not with another home-remodeling deadline to meet.

Newlyweds Katie and Adam Wells surveyed the puddly back yard they were supposed to be landscaping and decided instead to focus on changing out a wall sconce in the family room. EXTRA
• Sample of home-imrovement shows

"Been meaning to do that since Day 1," said Katie.

Just a few blocks away, Joey Smith was wielding power tools in the garage while his girlfriend, Rebecca Stephenson, readied a wheelbarrow full of brightly colored flowers for placement around the backyard pool.

At Bill and Cindy Fernandez's place nearby, backyard pruning and weeding were proceeding in earnest, judging from Bill's sweaty brow and Cindy's muddy blouse.

As far as these three couples were concerned, there would be no raining on their parade -- not this day, not this close to the end of competition.

For the past three months, Bill and Cindy, Joey and Rebecca, and Adam and Katie have been competing in a home-renovation race. One couple will win the house they've been living in and remodeling since early July.

Their week-to-week progress has been taped and will begin to play out for a national television audience when the new reality series House Rules debuts 7-8 p.m. Friday on TBS.

Here's the blueprint:

During the premiere episode, host Mark L. Walberg will describe the show, tell us about the thousands of people who entered online and show us some of the videotaped entries. At the Astrodome, he will introduce us to the three contestant couples, who take part in the first and most important of the series' weekly contests: The victors will pick the house they want to play for.

The options:

· A three-bedroom, 2,583-square-foot English Tudor design with backyard pool.

· A four-bedroom, two-story, 2,741-square-foot traditional located on a cul-de-sac.
Ben DeSoto / Chronicle
Katie and Adam Wells, married just two days before shooting for House Rules began, soon prove adriot at painting walls.

· A three-bedroom, 3,200-square-foot contemporary.

All are located south of I-10 near South Fry Road in Katy.

In the coming weeks, the teams will compete for remodeling money. During the second episode, for example, the designated project is the master bath; the couple that wins that week's contest has $17,500, while the second- and third-pace finishers get $13,500 and $10,000. (The money is a credit allowance at Lowe's; the home-improvement store is the show's title sponsor.)

After 12 episodes, viewers will decide, via online vote, which couple wins their home. The winner will be revealed in a live episode to air Dec. 12.

To play the game, the contestants had to put their regular lives on hold and move into the houses they are playing for (each was given a stipend so they could continue to pay their bills and eat). The weekly competitions had Sheetrock dust flying, paint slapping and tempers flaring. The stakes are large -- each home is valued at more than $200,000. The work can be back-breaking and the weekly deadlines are relentless, with cameras follow the teams every step of the way.

"The competition for budgets is on Mondays, and work begins on Tuesdays, which involves buying everything we need, planning out the room and executing it," said Katie, 23, explaining how the 12 weeks go by. "The only exception was the kitchen -- we got two weeks for that."

The couples demolish and rebuild Wednesday through Saturday. Hammers must be down by 8 a.m. Sundays, when three judges -- Houston real estate agent Shad Bogany, interior designer Kelley West (who sells antiques in Jacksonville, Texas, and Dallas) and home builder Stephen K. Hann -- decide who did the best job. The winning team receives a prize. In Episode 2, it's a KIA.

"I'm honest with the contestants," said Bogany. "I'm not looking just for effort. I'm looking for accomplishment."

The teams get no professional help other than with major installations (such as kitchen cabinets) and rewiring. Tools are provided by Lowe's, but the teams have to share.

Progress is monitored by the camera crews assigned to each team and via time-lapse photos shot in every room of each house.

"We're living here while we're doing it, so there are some positives," said Katie, who married Adam two days before shooting began. "We work so much, when our heads hit the pillow, we're out."

Some honeymoon, huh?

But that's OK with them. Or so they say.

"To win this house would be amazing," said Adam, also 23. "We don't have any other place to live, so it would be a great way to start our life off."

He's a logistical manager for Royce Builders, while Katie is an unemployed substitute teacher and tennis coach. She's from The Woodlands and he's from Dallas. They met at Texas A&M University.

Cindy, 37, and Bill, 47, have been together for 17 years and married for 11. She's a local jazz singer; he works for Kellogg Brown & Root.

"The fact that neither of us dominates the other is going to serve us well," said Cindy, who's known professionally as Cindy Scott. (Her CD, Major to Minor, was produced by her and Paul English at Sugar Hill Studios here.) "We're used to working together as a team."

"There are times when we will be fighting like cats and dogs," said Bill, "but in the end, we'll get over it. We won't be divorced after this is over."

Neither camera crew nor producers tell the couples what to do.

"Oh, no, no, no," said Cindy. "We can do whatever we want. You can sleep in, but there's no way to get the work done if you do, unless you do the bare minimum and you're not very picky people."

"On Sunday morning you're so tired from working all night to try to finish," said Bill. "The worst part is, the judges come at 9 o'clock to look at things, and they kick you out of the house. So you've been up all night and you go to some parking lot and you sleep in the car and then they call you and you come back. Then you get a three-hour nap and at 1:30 they have the judgment."

All of the couples attended the judgments, which gave them peeks into how the competition was progressing.

The most intense couple may be Joey, 28, and Rebecca, 26, who have had a long-distance relationship for about a year and are living together for the first time.

"We've definitely had our (emotional) moments," said Rebecca, a commercial analyst for Exxon who has a home in the Heights. "But that's part of it. It's 24/7. It's no stopping. It's very intense, but also very rewarding."

"We made a decision to enter," said Joey. "You have to devote yourself and say, OK, here's three months of my life and it's going to be a life experience."

Joey and Rebecca were classmates at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. He believes their experience there will be the secret to their success.

"I think we have a common bond," said Joey, who's second mate on an oil tanker with a home in North Carolina. "That's four years of very hard work. So we know what it takes to accomplish a goal.

"We're going to win because we're the all-American amateurs," said Joey.

And if they don't?

"We will!" said Rebecca.

Kstme

Saturday, October 11, 2003 - 5:10 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Texannie, THANKS for the article. After I posted, I remembered them saying it was going to be up to the public to decide. Dang CRS!

Texannie

Saturday, October 11, 2003 - 7:36 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
It's kind of Survivor, BB, and Trading Spaces all in one! LOL

Naja

Saturday, October 18, 2003 - 10:11 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
It seem ok, but after these first 2 episodes, at times I feel like I am just watching an hour long Lowe's infomercial.

Alexia

Saturday, October 18, 2003 - 10:34 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I agree, that really makes the show less appealing, and Lowes too for that matter LOL

*heads off to Home Depot*

Dee

Saturday, October 18, 2003 - 10:46 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I'm glad I logged on - it turns out the show is on right now. I missed about 20 mins of it - not bad.

The "incentive" prize is the car.

Am I watching the first episode?

Thanks!

Alexia

Saturday, October 18, 2003 - 10:52 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Dee, you're watching the second episode. I think its better than the first though LOL

Dee

Saturday, October 18, 2003 - 10:58 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks, Alexia!

One of the women just dropped her cell phone in the paint bucket!!!

Kappy

Sunday, October 19, 2003 - 5:24 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I'm not too sure how I feel about this show yet. I was looking forward to it and thought I would like it but I found the 2nd episode a bit slow. Maybe you're all right about the Lowe's thing because I guess I expected to see much more of the actual work the couples were doing and how they accomplished it. Instead, I felt like I saw a beginning and an end without much of a middle to hold my attention.

Nikro

Tuesday, October 28, 2003 - 3:43 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I like this show so far. The 1st show with the silly games like supermarket sweep was a little much for me. but the other show was pretty good. I think it will get better as we go along and the contestants get stressed out and ready to kill thier partners. And YES the Lowes comercials are a little much, but I do like Mark L wahlburg. When I was going through my Game Show Network phase, he was my favorite.

I do see, however that there is one couple in particular that seems to be the showboats, sorry have no clue of their names yet. I hope the others catch up and win some,too.

Look froward to chatting w/ you all!

March

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 12:17 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I just caught this show by accident as I was flipping through the channels last Friday night. I liked it. I don't know if any of you are still watching it anymore but it's not bad.
Last friday was the outdoor/yard one and I liked it because we have been doing quite a bit on our front yard the past few summers and like to get new ideas. The next show was the living room one, interesting ideas these people have. I don't think I am creative enough to be on one of these shows, some of their ideas I never would have thought of. Now this week was the kitchen, they have two weeks for this one so the results won't be until next week because they all needed help with wiring. They also had a catch up show where they competed for money to finish projects they didn't get done in the previous rooms.
The thing I like about it is that you can pick up some good ideas on remodeling.

Texannie

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 12:52 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I watched last night. They sure are doing a good job of showcasing the neat things around my town!
I am really enjoying it. I got tickled last night after one of the judgings, one of the ladies just broke into tears over the stress of it all. The host says "bet you rather be out in the jungle eating bugs, think it's easier." and she said "uh..no..."!

Froggiegirl621

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 3:32 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I LOVE this show...I can't wait to see what they do with their kitchens! I'm really hoping for the older married couple to win, I think they deserve it the most!

Texannie

Saturday, November 15, 2003 - 4:35 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I change my mind each week. I am so amazed at how well the young newlywed couple works together and communicates. Sometimes the older husband just makes me crazy!! I felt so much for the middle girl working so hard on that bathroom.

March

Monday, November 17, 2003 - 10:25 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Do you mean the one that worked on putting tile up in the shower?
I do think she worked very hard on it but myself I didn't like it. It is a small area to start with and with the dark tile it just looked like a cave.

Texannie

Monday, November 17, 2003 - 10:34 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Yes. I would have died of claustraphobia in there! LOL