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Where to get trainings to be a renovation contracter?

Home renovation shows that get into the nitty gritty

  • My boyfriend would like some recommendations for good, detailed home renovation shows. I've looked at previous questions and could only find one recommendation, Holmes on Homes, which we'll look up. Boyfriend likes to learn about the details of construction processes. The DIY portions of the Australian show, Better Homes & Gardens, are an example of what he likes. I think there might be an American version of that show (?) which we'll also look into. He doesn't mind if the show is in English, it can be about whole house renovations or just focus on particular rooms/projects. Can be contest-based or more documentary-style. The main point is he likes it when the presenter goes into depth about the steps involved in [thing]. For myself (and I will also be watching these), I prefer shows that aren't too flashy with limitless budgets where every room ends up ultra luxe, overstuffed and generally "more is more" themed. Boyfriend doesn't care so much about that, so it's not essential, just a nice-to-have. Thank you for your suggestions!

  • Answer:

    PBS's This Old House

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Mike Holmes shows.

bartonlong

I love Rehab Addict on DIY. Like This Old House, it deals with (duh) old houses, which may or may not be your cup of tea. You may also like Fixer Upper on HGTV.

Madamina

Quilford

If you can find http://tv.msn.com/tv/series/restorer-guy/ from many years ago, it's a good one. He was someone who restored houses with some sense. But mostly, This Old House is about as good as you'll get for this now. (I also like Rehab Addict, what I've seen of it.)

darksong

They're no longer making new episodes, but The New Yankee Workshop definitely fits the bill. That and This Old House were my (and my grandfather's) crack when I was growing up.

karbonokapi

bartonlong suggest Mike Holmes, and that's about as good as it gets if you're looking for anything that's even remotely applicable to real-world renovation. But, even Mike tends to take a "gut it" attitude sometimes. Shows like This Old House and Hometime long, long ago abandoned reality and focused exclusively on high-profile, money-is-no-object, gut-it-to-the-framing renovations. Most of the time, TOH's "renovations" seem to be little more than commercials for high-end bells and whistles. I've often thought about writing the production company and dare them to take on renovating my modest mid-70's midwest ranch and keep it within a reasonable budget. There's easily a season full of real-world problems in this home they would have to address that I'm sure tons of viewers would identify with. If you could scare-up TOH episodes from the first couple of years, you might pick-up ideas that translate to the real world. Those early Bob Villa-era shows were far less over-the-top expensive.

Thorzdad

This Old House focuses on gut rehabs that end up high level, but Ask This Old House solves narrowly defined problems and goes though the solution step-by-step.

Dashy

This Old House doesn't seem to have as much good hands-on info as in the past; I stopped watching it because it seemed to be more like infomercials for various new and shiny home improvement products than demonstration on how it's done. The Mike Holmes shows tend to be quite good, I don't remember the name of it but there was one series that was about undoing badly-done renovations, and seeing the wrong way to do it is about as valuable as seeing how it got fixed.

AzraelBrown

While these entertaining suggestions are good, if he really wants to learn, check out Fine Homebuilding and Tauton Press: http://www.tauntonstore.com/framing-walls-larry-haun-061023.html

humboldt32

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