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Colin and Justin’s Home Show

Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan
  • Posted at 10:54am
  • 25 October 2007
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT
  • 9 comments

There are many TV shows whose aim is to help us transform our homes from stinking hovels into luxurious palaces. Most of them concentrate on jobs that require you to get your hands dirty – you know, knocking down a partition wall to fool your brain into thinking you have more space, when you actually have one less place to hide mountains of junk. Or hacking away at brickwork to reveal lead water pipes that are slowly reducing your family's cognitive abilities.

Colin and Justin, however, never get their hands dirty. Their forte is soft furnishings and accessories, and between them they have the enviable ability to change a room by removing all your stuff, and replacing it with a load of their stuff.

One segment of their show entitled Room Revamp requires them firstly to sneer at someone's living room, insult their poor taste, and then "create a sense of unity" by turning it into a department-store showroom.

Thing is, most of our living rooms look a bit rubbish. This isn't necessarily because of poor taste. It's because, through lack of resources, we've been forced to accept some of the choices of the previous occupant – dubious carpets, textured wallpaper – and combine them with our own haphazard collection of belongings which we've amassed over several years, purchases which were not guided by a thematic sensibility, or – God help me – a "mood board". Living rooms just end up like that.

And it's no particular surprise that when a TV crew clears out your junk and pays for redecoration, it's going to look better. But... but where's all my stuff gone? Where are my books, my magazines, the lopsided ornament made for me by my five-year-old nephew? In a skip? Oh, OK.

The biggest part of Tuesday's programme involved putting up two false walls in the middle of a Kent shopping centre to make a room-like space, and spending the next few hours creating a look that Colin and Justin chose to call Oriental Chic. "Think yin and yang, think feng shui..." Think spending £6,100 on creating a slightly unpleasant hotel bedroom in front of an audience of about 30 bored shoppers.

When they'd finished, one bloke in a baseball cap was asked what he thought. He shrugged, noncommittally. "Ah, I like the fact that you're not gushing," said either Colin or Justin, a hilarious display of trying to make someone's ambivalence seem like acceptance. Maybe try that one at school, kids. When you're handed back an essay with a low mark, smile knowingly, point at the teacher and say, "You know, I love the fact that you're not gushing". See how it goes down.

They ended up visiting a man supposedly renowned for his taste, a restaurateur by the name of Hassan Abdullah, whose flat looked like an overcrowded antique shop. Clearly a man with far more money than sense, and also someone who doesn't have seven-year-old children around very often, Hassan's random collection of priceless objets trouvés were nevertheless cooed over by the boys.

At one point, they actually posed the question: "So, how can we create this look without breaking the bank?" Which is like standing at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower and saying, "So, how can we create one of these, but without using scaffolding?"

You came away from the programme with one conclusion as to how to improve your home: earn more money, and buy expensive stuff. Easy. Go to it, everyone.

Colin and Justin's Home Show is on UKTV Style (Sky 256, Virgin 265) at 8:00pm on Tuesdays.

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Post a comment | 9 comments

Comments

  • Posted on 27 July 2008
  • at 8:05pm
  • by Amanda

Love the show..I'd love the chance to have them do my home. I work from pay chque to pay cheque and would the hard work feel good, come to a great home to enjoy. Is there a chance they can do this for this hard working single woman? You guys are GREAT!!!!!!!!!!

  • Posted on 18 November 2007
  • at 4:28am
  • by misswings07

I watch Colin and Justin, they are in Canada doing a show called Home Heist, which is awesome and of course they are very talented guys! I was wondering where you (billy11 or anyone) found out that they got married. I do know they have been together for over 20 years.

  • Posted on 17 November 2007
  • at 12:52pm
  • by twertyhh@yahoo.co.uk

and they're CUTE!!

  • Posted on 17 November 2007
  • at 12:52pm
  • by twertyhh@yahoo.co.uk

I like this show cos its tongue in cheek fun plus the designers are very knowledgable and Im doing a living room like they did last week. Very good

  • Posted on 04 November 2007
  • at 2:07pm
  • by billy11@yahoo.co.uk
Been enjoying this show. Really interesting to see a design show not from someones house and set in a shopping precinct instead. Wish Colin and Justin would make my house as nice as their shows. Just read that they got married in America this week. Well done say I!!! Will and Fiona, Sussex
  • Posted on 04 November 2007
  • at 2:06pm
  • by billy11@yahoo.co.uk
Been enjoying this show. Really interesting to see a design show not from someones house and set in a shopping precinct instead. Wish Colin and Justin would make my house as nice as their shows. Just read that they got married in America this week. Well done say I!!! Will and Fiona, Sussex
  • Posted on 30 October 2007
  • at 11:50pm
  • by stellarrr

thought the show was great tonight. makes a change to see something we can all afford and doing this from a shopping centre is genius. I LOVE Colina and Justina xx

  • Posted on 28 October 2007
  • at 12:33pm
  • by themanwhofellasleep

I am always slightly puzzled as to who the viewers are for such shows. Because most of the people I know are young professionals who couldn't get on the housing market in a million years and are forced to rent a variety of small, pokey flats with broken sofas and manky carpets. There seems to be a whole other England who can not only afford their own homes, but are happy to spent the equivalent of a years rent on beige chintz. Good luck to them. The swine.

  • Posted on 25 October 2007
  • at 1:54pm
  • by marysiak

I find tidying up works wonders, but i try not to do it too often in case the glamour of it wears off.

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