For some reason, I was thinking about home and garden makeover shows this morning. Maybe it is the fact that the project of decorating the hall and landing is almost done but still ongoing months after commencement? In the makeover genre a team of workers would transform a house or garden in just a day or two. I always found them a little unbelievable. In my experience even preparing the surfaces for painting or papering can take a significant amount of time although I think it is fair to say that I’m not the fastest decorator in town.

What would be fascinating would be to see a programme following up the original shows of the 90’s and early 2000’s, which I think were the heyday of the genre. How do those gardens look with twenty years on them? Has anything survived? How long did people actually live with the redecorated rooms which they claimed to love when they first saw them on TV? Do any of those internal features still survive?

I think such a programme would demonstrate a large amount of waste, washed with not a small amount of tragedy and sadness. Offsetting this would be the warmth of nostalgia and a sparkle of curiousity. Above all though, there would be a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the genre with a new degree of realism.

Do any producers want to take up my idea? Has it already been done?