HGTVReviews 606

I believe wholeheartedly this couple has their heart in the right place, but not competent as remodelers. Erin's wallpaper was beautiful and Ben has some very cool woodworking ideas. However there so much clutter and cheap junk all over the place. Please please stop using cheap see through blinds! There are several remodels that just seem unsafe or halfass (like the Romeo balcony door that had layers of old paint and they sloppily just painted). Unprofessional. I'm going to stop. Some doors open and other close.

This is one of those "You have seen one, you'seen them all" shows. Don't expect Jonathan or Drew or The Magnolia crew.
It always comes to the last reveal when It becomes obvious whether the show was worth watching or not.
Regardless of the degrees the decorator holds to her credit, I feel she does not know the first thing about applying color to small spaces, scale or over accesorizing.

All in all, another low budget disappointment.

Hard to believe the haters on this show. What smug vitriol. Home Town is not a Chip and Joanna rip-off. There are differences. The theme of wanting to help new neighbors come home to and fit into small town living is wonderful. I think Erin and her husband's chemistry is fine. I think their renovations of old homes and the interesting histories behind the houses are fascinating. Sometimes the staging is a tad busy for my taste, but the way they bring local elements, like repurposing items, family mementos, local folk art and historical documents into each house is fantastic.

It may be more farmhouse country than the negative reviewers here like. So turn the channel and find a cookie-cutter, up-to-the-minute, totally out there financially and aesthetic remodel more to your liking. You're not gonna find it with this show. What I have found with this show is a genuine warmth, reasonable frugality, creativity and desire to help others that is quite appealing.

I think a lot of these negative views come from people who despise southerners and feed into a negative stereotype. Given the paranoid, hysterical political climate that is pushed by the mainstream, this is not surprising. I love Home Town even though I'm a liberal Production Coordinator with a well-known film and media company located in San Francisco and Marin County, CA. I can only dream of living in a small town where $200,000 or less gets you a beautiful home and neighbors who are hospitable, not snobby-chic and in debt up to their eyeballs.

Carry-on, Erin and Ben Napier. I enjoy you as a couple as well as your show. I've done some research on you both and was quite impressed with your success prior to the HGTV shows. Ignore the snotty reviewers who probably haven't done as much in their lives as you two have done for others.

I read some of the reviews and was actually upset with several neg remarks. I watch Fixer Upper, too. But what makes some people think they were the FIRST! Disappointed in comparing them to any other show Ben is a carpenter and a good one at that. Chip, not.Erin does drawing of potential property. Why put them down? Don't watch and put neg comments! I enjoy the show and am so happy to see them trying to restore homes that may have gone to the bulldozer. My goodness why not be happy for them and the town they are helping bring back to life. One thing that I wish someone could answer is why bathrooms are not showed? Do they not upgrade them? Or are they not fancy enough to show? Keep up the good work
Ben and Erin, enjoy watching you two. Pat

The new show HomeTown - which I've binged watched at least 3 times since there's only 6 or 7 shows so far - is FANTASTIC and such a breath of fresh air. I thought it might be just another Fixer Upper, but it's not. HomeTown doesn't waste time on showing things like Chip's gross antics (eating a roach... really?), removing his shirt (yuck!), jumping in a river, playing tricks, riding a plane, etc. or the family eating breakfast, playing with animals, or bringing dinner to Jo. All this really takes away from the remodeling and decorating, the reason our family watches the show. Magnolia brand promotion also wastes time and gets really old. We just fast forward through all that now.

I love Joanna's decorating, but we see so very little of it on the show. We figure we only see decorating for maybe 8-10 minutes per show from Fixer Upper but HomeTown is much more interesting and doesn't waste time on the stars' personal lives.

Erin and Ben are masters at figuring how to do things less expensively, both in building and decorating. Their decorating is fun and entertaining. I especially like that Erin actually gets in there and works on the houses while Joanne just points and tells people what to do. (You'll never see Jo tearing down a wall, ripping up a floor or painting a front porch. In a show I watched the other day, Jo wouldn't even go get a bucket from the front yard for Chip.) And Ben is such a gentleman and so mannerly compared to Chip Gaines.

And I so love these old, historic homes that HomeTown does such a great job of bringing back to life and the local vendors and others who assist them. The couples who purchase the houses have been so cute and have interesting stories as to why they're moving to a little town like Laurel, MS. I just hope they don't run out of homes or buyers any time soon.

Best show on HGTV or DIY Network right now. Keep 'em coming!

HGTV, you're in a rut. Enough with the "couples" shows and the ubiquitous spin-offs. Also, must every design on every show be sooooo generic, so Pottery Barn/Ikea, so boring? Enough with the formulaic. Take a deep breath and take a risk, HGTV. Here are five ideas for new shows. 1. Superstar designers. Ordinary people win a design consultation with a super star designer. The contestant could choose amongst five or so designers and choose based only on the designer's renderings without knowing the designer's identity. 2. Use What You Have or Warts to Wonderful. Don't rip out that 1960s pink bathroom and replace it with Ikea particle board. Those 60s bathrooms can be made adorable with a little imagination. You could do an entire series based on the split level, which most people hate and is often ugly, but can be made incredible with some vision and imagination. 3. Legends of Design or Designers Who Changed the World. Have current designers talk about design legends such as Elsie De Wolf or Sister Parish and then design modern rooms based on their ideas using original photographs of rooms that the legendary designers created. 4. Design Element Bingo. What if five designers were challenged with creating a powder room based on Chanel's little black dress? Or a living room based on the bergere chair? Or a dining table based on a bicycle? Of course these would not be literal, but merely reference the aforementioned. 5. Past to Present Design. Egyptian, Greek, Medieval, Jacobean, Louis XIV, Tudor, Victorian, 1980s, take elements or an element from an historic period, explain it to the tv audience and then create a modern room using elements from that period. What kind of a bathroom could one create incorporating the Greek key or a dining room that incorporated Victorian gingerbread in an imaginative yet modern way? Once again, no need to be literal. These are a few idea. Perhaps other posters have more and better ones. Please HGTV, take a risk and try something new and different.

I like the show very much and I think their talent is vety intriguing of a smal southern town. It's a new twist of a fixer upper show which is also very refreshing and I like the historical considerations they factor into their designs and remodels. I also like their use of smart repurposing in all their redos which makes it not cookie cutter at all. Good job HGTV and good job Ben and Erin! It''s also very refreshing that they're NOT actors.