How to Build a House in 30 Minutes and Other TV Nonsense

I am always astounded by the amount of information that is not shared on the Saturday morning home repair and decorating shows. Perhaps the best example of this was a show where recaning seat bottoms of chairs was treated as a 5 minute filler at the end of the show. Now anyone who has ever recaned a chair, or looked for someone who knows how to do it understands that 5 minutes is only enough time to get someone into deep trouble if they try to do it themselves.

I am also amazed by the standard cut away shot where the voice over says, "We started construction of the built in bookcases." as they show a man cutting panels on a table saw. The next shot is a man screwing the carcass to a stud in the wall, and then the final shot is one of the hosts inserting the final screw into the hinge of the beveled glass door. I suspect that many people do not realize that the real process took several days labor by skilled craftsmen who live off camera and are there to make the host or hostess look knowledgable.

I'm pretty sure that this sort of thing leads to home improvement disasters. My wife recently told me of a man who volunteered to construct 3 boxes for the winners of the reading contest to stand on at her school. If you know woodworking, you know that there are several things needed to do this right. First of all, a table saw is pretty handy. Secondly, a panel cutting jig is necessary to get right angles, and finally, gluing and screwing all the joints is necessary to assure that they are solid.

The night before they were needed, the man was still having problems keeping all the sides together, he eventually needed the help of his father to complete it. On stage, the face of one of the boxes fell off.

Is this the result of the home improvement shows on TV? You probably could not prove it in court, but I still think that it contributes to the attitude that woodworking is a cinch, and that a project never takes more than half an hour to complete.