Television show: Home to Keep

While my reading has slowed, my television viewing has not. Instead of keeping up with all of the currently airing TV shows I'm interested in, I've been binging on Psych and Home to Keep, both included in Amazon Prime. I literally always have one tab open for each show on my browser window.

Home to Keep is a home improvement reality TV show from HGTV Canada. The premise of this show is that the host guy goes around to real people's homes (who have applied to be on the show) and fixes the problem area/s of their home with the help of his designer/contractor friends, so that instead of having to move, they have a Home to Keep. It's a really fun, neat show if you like interior design shows, which I do.

The general format of each show goes like this:

1. Family has a problem area in their home. Awkward, too small, no storage, etc.
2. Peter comes in, talks to them and assesses what needs to be changed. 
3. He gets the realtor to find them a similar house where they've done something unique and exciting with that room, and shows it to the family to give them ideas of what they could do with their problem area.
4. Peter and the contractors get to work.
5. Peter and the interior decorator, Liz, choose the look and materials for the area.
6. repeat #4 & 5 as needed.
7. Peter and Liz decorate the finished room/s.
8. Reveal.
9. Peter invites the realtor back to show her what they did. She always loves it.

To me, what sets this apart is that the show is set in Canada, and the approach and timing is completely different than it would be in an American interior design TV show. The show host Peter is a smiley, friendly white dude who you can tell really does care about the families and wants them to love their homes. While I'm sure many of his relationships with the contractors and realtor are professional, he is 100% BFFs with his interior decorator, Liz. They are so cute together, getting all excited about floor tiles and fabrics. I feel like an American host of a TV show would be super put together and dressed up, etc., but Peter looks like an ordinary dude who is wearing his normal clothes. He doesn't dress to stand out or bleach his teeth, if he's wearing TV makeup it's only powder for shine, and sometimes his hair is out of place. It's refreshingly normal. The contractors and designer are all normal people who are good at their jobs. Only the realtor, an icy former beauty queen type, looks like she's in show biz.

This show, which is half an hour long, moves at a clipped pace through the renos (that's HGTV-speak for renovations). It moves briskly along without spending any time on drama the way an American HGTV show would, even though renovations and changing layouts etc. would organically lead to possible conflicts and problems. Sometimes in the end the couple will casually mention they weren't sure about some change when it was presented to them, but they always say it worked way better than they thought it would/they love the change, etc. The families don't really seem to be involved in the decisions, but that's par for the course in these types of home renovation shows.

What I don't like and would change is that there is no big reveal to the family. I want to see their surprised faces when they see all of the team's hard work! This is probably the biggest difference between this and American renovation shows. US shows are all about the big reveal and tears, etc. The reveal is for us, the viewers, and shots of the before and after are interspersed with footage of the family using their new space and talking heads of them saying how much they love the changes. I also don't like that they show us brief clips of the finished rooms before the end of the show, probably as they go to commercial. I would save it all until the end. I do like that Peter himself also takes on small projects, such as sanding and repainting small pieces of furniture, reupholstering seats, etc.

Overall, this is a fun, interesting show that I love to watch while relaxing. The Canadian accents and friendliness are so soothing, and this show is way better to watch at night than any of my many murder mystery shows as there is no suspense. It gives me lots of great ideas for home projects, and I love it.

Book review: The Benevent Treasure by Patricia Wentworth

My reading has slowed considerably, but the latest book I've read was another mystery (shocker), called The Benevent Treasure. It is part of the Miss Silver Mysteries series by Patricia Wentworth, which are set in England in the early 20th century. I was excited to read a gothic-looking mystery with a lady detective. There are a couple of murders/dead bodies, so I was a little surprised to see this is billed as a cozy mystery, but I guess that's because Miss Maude Silver is always knitting.

The Misses Benenvent have always lived in their huge, old, gloomy mansion, the aptly named Underhill. When young Candida's aunt dies, they extend an invitation to her to live with them, as their only other family. However, Candida quickly learns that there is much creepiness to her new life: the great-aunts, one of whom rules the household and her sister (and wants to rule Candida) with an iron fist; the mysterious disappearance of a male secretary who might have been something more, and hidden treasure that has a curse over it. Add in some hidden passages/doors, a robotic butler, and a cook that knows too much, and you have a rollicking Gothic mystery.

I found it weird that this book is supposed to be a Miss Silver mystery, yet it features her so seldom. The main character is Candida, and it's mostly told through her perspective. Miss Silver is one of those proper matrons who is very observant and a good listener and always knows what to do or say, but she's not really a Mary Sue and is quite likable. I wish we'd seen more of her in this book. I suspected what had really happened to the missing secretary pretty early, but the twists and turns kept me guessing. I would recommend this book, and want to read the others in the series.

The cover has that old 1960s Gothic art, which misrepresents what the story is about. Candida has auburn hair, not blonde like the girl on the cover. The mansion is basically cut into the bottom of the hill (hello?!? Underhill!!!), not on top of it. And while Candida is SPOILER imprisoned in the hidden below-ground areas under the mansion, she is not put into a prison cell with a window, wearing rags and barefoot. She's dressed in her outdoor clothes and boots, and there are no windows in the stone room. END SPOILER I guess the aunts' characterization is mostly correct. I think I like this cover the best, although there are lots of good (and bad ones) in Google Images.

Score: 4 out of 5 stars
Read in: mid-late March
From: pretty sure the free books rack @ the library
Format: paperback
Status: might give away at some point