Clone Home – Do HGTV Designs Drain Personality?

I ran into another aspect of the Coronavirus pandemic this weekend.  My wife and I are thinking about a kitchen remodel and apparently we are not alone.  We went to Bemis Appliance on South First Street in Yakima on Saturday to look at stoves and refrigerators and we were surprised on several accounts.

First of all we weren't surprised by how helpful, knowledgeable and professional the salespeople were.  That's a given with Bemis.  Good job guys!

What did surprise me (along with the prices) was the backlog of available product.   The Coronavirus has impacted the manufacturing, assembly and shipping of appliances.  There is a 3 to 4 month delay from order to delivery and maybe more depending what you order.

At the same time, as our salesman Jim said, people can't travel to Hawaii or take their usual vacations so they are deciding to spend their time and money on home projects and remodeling.  That Covid inconvenience has led to appliance stores seeing business up as much as 30%.   Depending on your attitude, when increased demand meets short supply it can be a recipe for frustration or a lesson in patience.

Here's another factor that may be putting pressure on product availability.  The fact that the popularity of Home-improvement TV shows have all our homes looking the same and using the same design elements. A new Insider.com opinion article "argues that they are causing everyone's home to look alike as they follow the design choices frequently used in those shows, things like open-concept floor plans, barn doors, shiplap walls, industrial sinks, exposed beams and accent walls." 

Article author Smantha Grindell concludes that all us HGTV clones create cookie cutter designs that are "drained of any personality."   Sorry Ms. Grindell but I disagree.  I admit to being "design challenged" and I appreciate the creative ideas put forth on HGTV.  While some designers have a tendency to borrow from themselves, there are a number of designers and designer teams on the network and they make for plenty of interesting variety.  Can't wait to see how mine turns out!