Rika Rè Interiors | Rè-Style Blog

It was around 2016 when my mother began watching popular home design shows as part of her daily 6 p.m. “trash TV” wind-down after work. It became a kind of palette cleanser for her. Occasionally, I would stand beside the television, arms crossed, watching with a more critical eye while she remained fully immersed in aspirational daydreams about someday living in a home like the ones on screen.

I would find myself watching both the shows and my mother at the same time, observing her reactions as much as the interiors being presented on screen. It became a quiet study in preference. I learned which styles she responded to, which ones she were less drawn to, and what she seemed to believe made a house feel like a “dream home.”

Her favorite, for a time, was one of the popular HGTV programs, Property Brothers. The brother’s shared aesthetic and decisions in design clearly resonated with her, and I started paying closer attention to the finished projects, to the materials they used, the pacing of the renovations, and the perceived effort behind each transformation. I was always less interested in the reveal itself than in the process leading up to it.

That distinction really mattered to me. Even then, I wasn’t watching as a typical viewer. I was aware that reality television is constructed. It is edited, compressed and shaped for entertainment value. (Much like social media. Am I right?) It exists to be watchable, not necessarily to be accurate. Very few people would willingly observe a full renovation process from start to finish in real time unless they were directly involved in it. The work is often slow, sometimes boring, sometimes complicated and often physically and logistically demanding.

In practice, interior design sits between multiple skillsets. It requires coordination between clients, contractors, and architects, and often involves translating between different forms of expertise. Things like helping clients articulate what they want, while also interpreting technical constraints from builders and architects. It is as much communication work as it is “making things pretty“.

With that in mind, I realized I had already begun watching these shows through a designer’s lens, even before I fully committed to pursuing interior design myself. I wasn’t absorbing them as entertainment alone. I was analyzing them. I was tracking decisions, noticing inconsistencies, and evaluating how space was being constructed both visually and structurally.

Over time, I began to notice a gap between what was presented on screen and what I understood to be realistic design practice. Certain choices felt overly simplified. Others seemed impractical or unsustainable beyond the lifespan of the episode. Some designs looked visually striking but, in my estimation, would likely become overwhelming or unlivable within a short period of actual use. (This is a common problem with poor design decisions.)

Budget representation was also point of friction for me. The costs implied on screen often felt disconnected from what an average viewer could reasonably afford. At the same time, the shows rarely offered a full, transparent sense of time, labor, or coordination required to complete these projects. The result was a version of renovation that felt compressed and not just in editing, but in reality itself.

This led me to question not only the content of the shows, but the credibility of the “designers” being presented. In doing some research, I found that many HGTV personalities do not come from traditional interior design backgrounds. Some are real estate agents, contractors, or house flippers who operate within adjacent industries rather than formal design training.

That in itself is not necessarily problematic. Design is not a legally uniform profession in the United States, and titles are often loosely applied depending on state regulations and industry context. Television production further complicates this, since branding, legal structure, and entertainment value all intersect behind the scenes.

Still, it raised an ongoing question for me:

“When design is filtered through entertainment, marketing, and personality-driven media, what exactly are we being shown—and what is being left out?”

What gets lost in this shift is the real work of design. The messy coordination, money limits, unpredictable labor, and constant problem-solving. Instead, what we see on screen is a simplified version of expertise. We see confident personalities, smooth “before-and-after” reveals, and fast decisions that look easy, even when they are not.

Reality TV is not a true reflection of how interior design works. It is a production format built to feel like reality. The most important feature of design television is not that it is fully wrong, but that it is carefully shaped to look “right“. What viewers see is edited through storytelling. We see clear beginnings, petty conflicts and satisfying endings. Real design projects, especially in broader scope, rarely follow that kind of clean structure. This creates a subtle but powerful effect where people are not just watching home renovation, they are learning a simplified version of how home renovation works.

Undeniably, there is a psychological side to this. Design TV warps visibility into credibility. When people repeatedly see someone on screen as a “designer,” they begin to assume that person is an expert. This assumption is not always based on formal training or proven skill. Instead, it comes from familiarity, confidence, and success shown on TV. If a project looks good at the end, viewers often assume the person behind it must be highly skilled. And perhaps they are to a degree, but they also have a production and contracting team working hard to make them seem competent on screen.

Because of this, design television changes how people think about design itself. It slowly flattens it. Complex parts of the job, including budgets, building limits, contractor work, and material sourcing—are all reduced to simple style choices. Design starts to feel like a matter of taste, not technical planning or coordination. That shift matters outside of entertainment. It affects how clients talk to designers, how homeowners judge cost, and what people believe “good design” actually is.

From this point of view, design television is not really showing the truth of extensive renovation work. It is showing a controlled version of it, where anything complicated is removed. What is left is not exactly false, but it is selected. And what gets selected shapes what people think is normal, realistic, and possible.

Having said that, I’m not suggesting that every show on HGTV is bad, nor do I think HGTV is inherently a bad network. Quite the opposite, actually. I think HGTV—and networks similar to it—absolutely have their place. There are plenty of shows they’ve produced that I’ve genuinely enjoyed and still find myself catching reruns of from time to time.

And to be fair, some shows have done a decent job showing the actual scope of a project: realistic budgets, client requests, timeline limitations, labor challenges, unexpected setbacks, and practical solutions that need to happen in order for a space to function. (Imagine… Reality television occasionally showing reality.)

I’ve even seen episodes where designers or contractors are working within strict deadlines and fixed timelines. Oof. That can be a doozie. But it’s also very real. Life happens. Clients have move-in dates. Budgets get weird. Materials get delayed. I appreciate transparency in programming that gives viewers a more honest glimpse into what designing for real people under real circumstances actually looks like. Because contrary to television magic, not everything happens under perfectly lit, shiny, stress-free conditions.

And no, I’m not completely dogging the “designers” on these shows either. But I do want to emphasize this again for you:

A surprising number of television “designers” are not actually interior designers by formal training, even though interior design is something they actively do.

For example, we have Christina Haack, formerly of Flip or Flop, Christina on the Coast, and The Flip Off. Christina’s background is in real estate and house flipping, not traditional interior design education. She entered television through real estate investing and renovation alongside Tarek El Moussa during the housing crash recovery era. Their business model focused on purchasing distressed properties, renovating them, and reselling for profit. Not residential design practice in the traditional sense.

The criticism surrounding Christina is often less about qualifications and more about the perception that the “designer” title on television can sometimes obscure the reality of large behind-the-scenes teams handling drafting, procurement, styling, and project execution. Even longtime HGTV viewers frequently point out how much of the actual design process appears to happen off-camera.

Then we have beloved queen of modern farmhouse herself, Joanna Gaines, formerly of Fixer Upper. (I’ve been a Magnolia fan for a very long time.)

But what surprises many people is that Joanna is not formally educated as an interior designer, despite being undeniably talented. (And no, this is not just bias talking. The woman clearly has natural instinct and a strong eye.)

Before HGTV, Joanna and Chip Gaines operated real estate and renovation ventures in Waco, Texas, while Joanna focused heavily on retail, merchandising, and visual styling. Her aesthetic sensibility eventually became the backbone of the Magnolia empire, but her path into television came through entrepreneurship and hands-on renovation—not formal design education.

That said, Joanna has arguably influenced residential interiors more than many credentialed designers ever will—for better or worse…

Uh. Hello, modern farmhouse apocalypse?

Another favorite of mine is Erin Napier, formerly of Home Town, who—while not formally educated in interior design, does consistently thoughtful, client-centered work that I both greatly appreciate and find even more refreshing.

Erin’s background is actually in art and graphic design, not interior design or construction. Before television, she worked in branding and stationery design, while her husband, Ben Napier, came from ministry work and woodworking. The couple eventually gained attention through social media and local preservation efforts, which ultimately led to television.

This is an interesting example because audiences often perceive Erin as a traditional “design expert,” when in reality, her strengths lean heavily into storytelling, restoration, visual instinct, and preservation. And honestly? Sometimes that translates beautifully.

Then there are the family-dynamic duos. Take Drew and Jonathan Scott, formerly of Property Brothers.

Again, neither brother is formally educated in interior design.

Drew Scott comes from a background in real estate and acting—which, at this point, feels less shocking and more like an HGTV personality prerequisite. Jonathan Scott, meanwhile, came from construction, contracting, and… illusion performance.

Yes. A magician.

Which means somewhere out there exists a timeline where Jonathan Scott is basically Criss Angel with a power drill, and honestly… I don’t hate that for him.

Then of course, we have the mother-daughter duo from Good Bones: Karen E. Laine and Mina Starsiak Hawk.

Karen’s professional background is actually in law. Before HGTV, she worked as a practicing defense attorney and had no formal education in interior design or architecture. HGTV itself often framed Karen as bringing legal knowledge and business expertise to the renovation company.

That said, Karen had years of hands-on renovation experience, a love for historic homes, practical DIY instincts, and extensive problem-solving knowledge gained through house flipping.

Her daughter, Mina Starsiak Hawk, comes from a background in real estate and hands-on renovation, rather than formal interior design education.

Which… admittedly explains a few things.

Personal opinion? I occasionally found Mina’s on-screen design decisions a little inconsistent. Caddy-cornered beds are not exactly my idea of strong spatial planning. But I will absolutely give credit where it’s due: The material selections were usually on point.

Mina graduated from Indiana University and brought real-estate knowledge into the business, while HGTV consistently framed her more as the practical project lead and renovation brain of the operation than a formally credentialed designer.

And importantly, Karen and Mina weren’t simply plucked from obscurity for television. The two had already been renovating homes in Indianapolis since around 2007 through their company, Two Chicks and a Hammer, years before HGTV found them. By the time cameras showed up, they had reportedly completed around twenty home renovations already. Which is pretty impressive no matter how you slice it.

And I think that nuance matters.

Because the issue isn’t necessarily that these people are untalented. Many are clearly skilled in renovation, styling, real estate, sourcing, construction coordination, or visual storytelling.

The problem is that television has increasingly blurred the line between designer, renovator, flipper, contractor, stylist, television personality, and actual interior design professional until audiences understandably assume they are all interchangeable.

And respectfully?

They’re not.