RENOVATING shows are a chip off the old block.
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Throw into the mix a try-hard couple or two, a pair with a short fuse, a sweet set of upper middle bogans and a couple of bleeding hearts and you’re halfway there on the tried and true formula.
Some teams have never picked up a hammer in their life while others are fourth-generation tools.
Curiously, they all have straight, bright white teeth but struggle with the English language. Words like iconic and Hampton’s (style) will stump them while I thought I was imagining things when “imaginating” cropped up on Channel 7’s renovating show House Rules. To be fair, I had to google wainscoting when it was listed as a house rule! (I love the sound of wainscoting. Sadly, it’s wooden paneling that lines the lower part of the walls of a room; I will likely never again use it in a sentence!)
That aside, I consume renovating shows at full tilt, hammer and tongs.
My eldest daughter does the same and my youngest pretends to so she can hang out with us in the study, secretly texting her dad about Taco Tuesday and anything other than paint colour.
In the spirit of the sixth season of Channel 7’s renovation show, these are my House Rules:
- Style our beds made. I never used to worry too much until an old sailor convinced me otherwise. In a speech that went viral in 2014 US Naval Admiral William H. McRaven, ninth commander of US Special Operations Command, said in 10 years of SEAL training his top tip was to make your bed every day. “If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the big things right. And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made — that you made — and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.” I quote it to my daughters ad nauseam and, if that doesn’t work, I tell them the labradoodle will lie on their clean sheets.
- Give us spider-free spaces (no sprays or chemicals, however!). Nothing against spiders but they keep hanging out in our bathrooms. Our youngest adopted one, named it and agreed they’d occupy the opposite ends of the room ie. huntsman ceiling, daughter floor. This worked well until Charlotte got offside early one morning last week and on to the toilet roll holder. Our unsuspecting daughter screamed the house down and Charlotte had to be evicted for breaching the residential tenancies act.
- Go minimal on lighting. I’m not talking about the number of lights in the house, I mean the operating hours. Switch off!
- Give us pops of colour throughout. Oh, look! We already have that courtesy of our youngest’s long-running urban street art phase. There are grey love hearts in permanent marker on the wall behind the leather lounge and some bold styles front and centre of the vintage sideboard.
- Choose a zone. Inside or out. I spent a splendid Saturday afternoon in the garden; just me and my mum and two leaf rakes, both of us shamelessly trespassing on Charlotte’s new home turf!
You have seven days to complete this renovation. Your time starts now!