I wrote this ages ago and found it again, it's a good time to post it anyway because Kevin is in Sydney! He's nice.
This show is both appalling and compelling. Appalling, because the couples who do these renovations are so sadly obsessed with A HOUSE. It is everything they live for. Usually they don't have kids, so it's just two yuppies trying to make something meaningful for themselves with architecture. And yet, if I watch it for five minutes, it's so fascinating I get totally glued to it. Will the stone barn fall down the subsiding hill? Can you build with straw bales? Will the ancient monument approval come through for the ruined castle reno—oh no! A 600 year old wall collapsed! It's not full of silly fake tension like Masterchef. It's just transformation of something yucky to something amazing with so much imagination and a great deal of money. Although, the money isn't so great. A castle renovation cost around 3/4 of a million pounds, which even when you convert it to AU$ and the fact that it was 4 years ago works out around maybe 1.2 million, which gets you a reasonable house in Sydney, but not, you know, a CASTLE. But anyway, I'm impressed at how creative people are, it's exciting stuff.
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