If you've ever done any projects around the house, I think you would enjoy the series on HGTV called Renovation Realities.

It is about regular people who decide to do a project on their home with limited time and budget, but unlike all the other shows on that network, it isn't about slick solutions - no design star person shows up to lecture us about how mirrors on the closet doors make a room larger (they were out now they are back in) or how all ceiling fans must be removed (everyone forgets they were put there for a reason). The show uses sarcastic graphics to let us know where the homeowner is messing up, such as endangering his arm while using the power saw.

The usual situation is a husband with a can-do attitude and his helpful wife who generally loses enthusiasm for the project when things start to go wrong. That's how it is around here. A lot of the time the husband is trying to get through the project without calling for help, but eventually they end up calling a relative or friend, or even hiring a contractor who has some experience. Mr. Troutbend never calls for help, but he is also very careful not to undertake anything very ambitious.

The funniest episode was building a huge deck and the guy had no idea of how to do it. Their yard was trashy when they bought the house so when they were measuring out where the deck would come to, he used an old toilet and toilet brush to mark the far edges. Before they could get really started they had to call a bee person to remove the extensive honey bee operation from under the old back steps. That put them $800 over budget, but they deemed it worth it.

His plan for attaching that big board to the house that would support the deck was to place the bolts through the brick and then hammer on the big board from the outside so the bolts made indentations and then he'd know where to drill the holes in the board. This didn't work. Then, he thought he would bury about 2 feet of a 2 by 4 in the ground and that wobbly upright was going to be the corner of the deck. Thank goodness he got help, and they did complete the project in the two or three days they'd allotted to it, but they were under a lot of time pressure, and ended up getting a lot of help from family.

The most recent one I watched involved creating a hallway that would run the length of the house by adding it from the outside. The guy allowed 7 days for this, and there were all kinds of complications that he more or less worked through, but he never finished the project, just got it functional. For some reason, Murphy's Law, during the course of the project a tree in front of the house broke off and fell on their van shattering the windshield.

I don't think the purpose of the show is to totally discourage people from doing their own projects, because some of them succeed. I think it is meant as a counterpoint to all those other shows that make it look too easy. If you've got basic cable (or satellite) you probably have HGTV, so for a good laugh, take a look at this show some time.