Property Brothers Forever Home tracks the transformation of homeowners remodeling their family’s house and also Drew Scott sometimes having a beard and sometimes not.
I prefer the Not Beard, because while my name-face recognition is horrific and I have walked straight past my own husband in the grocery at times without realizing he’s there, that husband is also an identical twin, and I possess the coveted superpower of knowing the difference between him and his brother. Even in their little kid pictures. Even after drinking.
This supernatural ability extends to being able to tell one Property Brother from another. Even when they’re not in their Contractor Man and Realtor Man uniforms. Even after drinking.
It’s not much, but it’s all I have, and bearding up Drew Scott rips this incredible bar trick right out of my hands.
While we’ll examine Season 3 in this series, but with old episodes regularly streaming on HGTV let’s start with Season 1, Episode 1. as an appetizer so you can meet the format.
Jonathan has largely ditched the “I’m The Plaid Brother” look here at the beginning of the series, concurrent with Drew’s appearing and disappearing beard. I just want you to know what you signed up for.
The premiere episode starred homeowners Diego and Nora, who live in a house, one house, the same house, with Diego’s parents and nobody’s even been murdered. They want to set the baby train in motion, and as we all know, the only feasible way to do that is to remove all walls.
The Space
There’s a terrifying front yard with a spiky fence and a gate, the kind you tend to see in neighborhoods with pawn shops and cell phone stores every eighteen inches. But the real problem here is the kitchen, which Jonathan dooms as “uninspiring.”
The uninspiring kitchen contains a pass-through window to the living room, which my husband Josh the Pilot has always coveted in a home of ours. Once I asked him why.
“So you can hand me food, ” he said, and we haven’t spoken since.
Right away Jonathan gets down to business. “We’re going to remove this wall,” he says, and Diego and Nora nod sagely, not even asking him to specify which wall. They all need to go.
Not only is there a dastardly kitchen wall, there’s also a 70s mirror wall and a weird inoperable brick fireplace, complete with those pointy little brass stars the 70s slapped all over everything.
I honestly don’t understand the 70s — how the human race managed to duplicate and survive. I was born at the end of them and don’t remember much, but what I do recall is suffused in burnt orange and terrible shoes, and if you want to contribute to my therapy as a 70s survivor, I’m authoring a Kickstarter campaign.
Jonathan and Drew present a renovation plan which tops out at $125,000, which is more than we paid for the whole entire house in which I am currently typing, but Nora and Diego choose a cheaper reno for $100,000, which is almost as much as the entire house in which I am currently typing, but it would have been less had we not insisted that the previous owners repair a hole in the roof the size of the Superdome.
Home ownership is almost as awful as the 70s.
The Moment of Oh No
Demo is proceeding crashingly until Jonathan comes to a tucked-away corner of the kitchen. Wait! Wait! Hold everything!
“We have a mouse infestation,” he announces. “That’s not like little mouse droppings– that’s like rat-size droppings.”
The camera zooms in on the droppings for all the viewers at home currently attempting to enjoy their box of raisins.
Having just lived through the horror of an exterminator cheerfully pointing to what Jonathan is also pointing to, I can confirm there’s nothing at all amusing about this. Instead I just upped my Kickstarter therapy goal.
The Magnifying Glass of Contentment
Scary Pointy Fence is still there like a prop straight out of the Disney World Haunted Mansion, but the outside of the house itself has been repainted a calm grey and now there’s a starter lemon tree.
In the kitchen, Jonathan has selected chalk green cabinets which are the exact shade of a diarrhea medicine my pediatrician made me take called Donagel, but Nora and Diego heart it, so… bless. Diego looks somewhat skeptical until he sees the wine fridge.
“No walls to get in the way!” Jonathan says happily.
Everybody hugs. Man. Remember hugging?
Also: Nora’s pregnant! I’m now sharing my Kickstarter proceeds with the unborn child as reparation for seeing, as one of the first objects it ever lays eyes upon in this world, those cabinets.
We Have Questions
Remember Drew? As Realtor Brother, Drew has less to do in Forever Home, so he becomes the sole Inspiration House Decorating Tour Guide. And there’s some discussion here about the modern aspects of this house as compared to the 70s stone-cold leftover which is the project home.
But Inspiration House’s interior is the color of bile, and no one even says anything about it, so between this and the cast-wide embrace of the Donagel cabinetry, I don’t know how all these people are allowed the power to vote.
Also there’s antennae inside the attic. Why?
“Know that you’ve always been somewhat helpful,” Jonathan says, extracting it as Drew tentatively takes hold of a single branch.
Last but not least, I have a LOT of questions about Drew’s sweater.
Look, it’s a nice sweater. And that’s the problem. This is a super dressy piece of clothing. It’s a church sweater. It’s a sweater you’d wear to the company happy hour. It’s not a Wander Around a Construction Site Recently Infested with Rats sweater.
Why, Drew?
Beam Status
After Jonathan dropped the rat bomb, there was a requisite round of IS THIS DIVIDING WALL LOADBEARING?!
It is!
“Which means that if we take THIS WALL OUT, YOUR CEILING COMES DOWN,” Nora and Diego are told. This will cost “a few thousand dollars.” Beam time! MULTIPLE beams!
So instead of one giant photogenic Big Beam, several beams are inserted in the ceiling to distribute the weight. Little, therefore, is made of Beam Day.
There’s always next week for Moar Beam.
Property Brothers Forever Home is currently broadcasting on HGTV.