Photo courtesy Two Chicks and a Hammer
Hi, HGTV fans! Thanks for dropping by for another recap from Good Bones Season 5. I’m Megan Fernandez, and I often write about homes for Indianapolis Monthly. My design-snob colleagues, Josh Cox and Kristin Sims, are here, too, pointing out the truly important stuff.
This episode, “DIY Reno Rescue,” heads to the Old Northside for a client reno, not a flip. The clients got in over their heads trying to do the work themselves. So from the beginning, this was a very different Good Bones.
Kristin: I liked this episode a lot. The final outcome was cool and a huge transformation. My favorite so far.
Josh: This episode was a delight on so many personal levels. We used to live in the Old Northside. My husband was about to leave the room when the episode started until he saw his crush, Curtis, who spins his good looks as well as he spins a mean Old Fashioned at Tini, the bar he owns. And I just so happened to be at Witch Hazel, the salon that Curtis’s stunning girlfriend co-owns, today to get my hair cut by my guy Sam.
Megan: Yeah, after five seasons, I still love seeing our Indy stomping grounds on the show. So Curtis and Mel, the Witch Hazel co-owner, are a young, cool couple living in a drab older house with a lot of potential, not the total dump that the team usually overhauls. But there’s still something awful inside to deal with. During the walk-through, Curtis starts to reveal something behind a cloth on the kitchen wall. “I like to hide this because people get scared when they come over,” he says. What did you think it was going to be? I was expecting gross or freaky.
Kristin: Our guesses ranged everywhere from asbestos or sewer issues to Bob Vila.
Megan: Close. It was the header from hell. Someone had stacked up seven two-by-fours like a giant Jenga puzzle instead of installing a proper header.
Kristin: It’s scary what is lurking in the walls of old homes, especially in the DIY era.
Josh: Now to the design. Everything can be summed up with a chef’s-kiss gif. Once again, they pulled together a gorgeous tile story throughout the house, and I agree with Mel that the bathroom was my favorite space.
Kristin: I’ll take the kitchen. Green cabinets with the raw-edge shelves worked for me. It’s fun and bright and seemed like a good fit for a young, hip couple.
Megan: Shout out to Iron Timbers in Osgood for making the custom dining room table with live edges and a metal inset, and live-edge floating bar shelves.
Kristin: The metal was such a better choice than filling the center with “bar top” resin. And the natural finish was beautiful.
Megan: But the cat steps are my favorite part of the remodel. Karen always finds a project for herself that’s full of love and inspiration. This time, she made a space for the pets under the stairs. The cat has its own steps leading to a little loft over the dog bed set into a niche. Perfect for a superior creature.
Josh: It would require lots of cleaning, though.
Megan: You two are obsessed with cleaning.
Josh: I’m also obsessed with Apollo’s perfect Boxer butt wiggle!
Kristin: As far as the pets, all I could think of were the little dog paws traipsing through the backyard after Tad broke the mirror. Why did he have to do that?
Megan: Cut to Tad’s moment of introspection this week: Practically stroking his chin, he said breaking stuff is his way of retaining a sense of innocence and fun in life. It was a deep moment for Tad, which is fine with me as long as he keeps wearing tight T-shirts.
Josh: Give me Cory and his perfect little belly in a tight shirt any day.
Kristin: Ahem. With everything being so horizontal on the main floor, I thought the vertical bars on the stairs were a great addition.
Megan: I wondered if they were a little busy.
Josh: The staircase is the showstopper of the design. The blend of the steel and raw-edge wood railing made my mouth water. And just another shout into the void for MORE M.J.!
Megan: Designer M.J. is a breath of fresh air and has great ideas. I’m sure we’ll see him next week—and I hope we also see Braveheart the rooster, who’s now been MIA for two episodes. I’m getting worried.
