On shows like “House Hunters”, they usually show potential homeowners wandering down nice suburban streets with beautiful lawns, cute dogs, and rustic storefronts.
According to one guest who appeared on “Curb Appeal”, the cameras were actually in an entirely different part of town when they were filming the establishing shots for the episode she featured in, wanting to show a neighborhood scene that was a bit nicer and livelier than the one she lived in.
The Final Reveal Isn't Necessarily the Final Result
Especially when it comes to the aforementioned show, "Love It or List It". Sometimes, when the designers run into problems and the crew goes off the renovation deadline, they improvise and make things look good on camera when in reality the home renovation is still incomplete.
Some tricks include sewing the fabric onto the pillows and making sure that furniture is strategically positioned to hide any flaws that haven’t been fixed yet. But let's be honest, it’s hard to get a house finished in such a short amount of time, especially the kind you see on these types of shows.
The Home Designs are Planned Out in Advance
According to Wendy Pruitt, a homeowner on HGTV's "Curb Appeal: The Block", all of the decisions regarding the design were made way before the production team or host had even set foot on her property.
Of course, this isn’t the ideal way for interior designers to work, but when you’re working on a million things in a tight time frame, you're forced to speed things along. Most people, especially if they have knowledge in the field, assumed some planning ahead takes place and everything isn't as spontaneous as it seems on television.
Local Subcontractors Do Most of the Work
Even though there’s always a cool designer wearing work gloves and a construction hat on these HGTV shows, the (actual) work is done by local contracting companies.
And comes to find out that these workers aren’t paid very well, but they do get to add HGTV to their resumes. Whether that’s a good trade-off or not is theirs to decide. But come on, we're sure HGTV has enough money to pay these hard workers a decent wage.
Again for the Camera, Please!
Reality TV can lose its magic when it stops being spontaneous. Often, when producers don't feel as though things are entertaining enough, they get to meddling, and that's when reality becomes a bit scripted. You know the scenes where the homeowners introduce themselves to us viewers or the scenes where they discuss their feelings about different homes? Well, since the prospective homeowners are not actors, it usually requires several takes until the producers feel they got them 'right'.
There have also been times when a homeowner did things the producers thought were funny or entertaining so they ask them to recreate it so they can catch it on camera perfectly.