Let’s get one thing straight: most design shows are fantasy.

Not the good kind — not imaginative, experimental, inspiring fantasy. No, they’re more like the Disneyland of interiors: scripted, sanitized, and surgically airbrushed to make the mess of real life disappear. What they offer isn’t design. It’s theater.

You’ve seen the formula: A chipper host walks a tearful homeowner through their “dated” space, hammers swing in a whirlwind of time-lapse productivity, and boom — cue the slow-motion reveal. No budget anxiety. No zoning issues. No creeping dread about whether that thrifted lamp actually works. Just polished surfaces, matching sets, and a voiceover assuring you that this is the dream.

But whose dream is it, really?

Design Shows Don’t Solve Problems — They Erase Them

In the real world, people live with weird layouts, weird budgets, and weird hand-me-downs. We try to work around radiators that can’t be moved and windows that let in too much light or not enough. We improvise with what we already have — a chair from your aunt, a rug from a yard sale, a dresser you painted three times to make it feel new.

But design shows? They bulldoze the weirdness. They erase the constraints. Instead of showing us how to live with a space, they show us how to overwrite it with a generic blueprint of aspirational sameness.

The result is a tidal wave of beige. Same couches, same wall sconces, same fake fiddle leaf fig in the corner.

Real Homes Have Personality. Real Design Has Grit.

You know what’s more interesting than a six-figure kitchen remodel? Watching someone figure out how to turn a tiny galley kitchen into a gathering space for their family. You know what teaches more about design than a showroom-perfect bedroom reveal? Seeing how someone uses color, creativity, and intention to transform a rental without touching the drywall.

There’s design magic in watching real people with real limitations solve real problems.

The person who finds a busted bench at the flea market and turns it into a bookshelf.
The renter who uses contact paper and removable hooks to create a gallery wall in their studio apartment.
The family that lives in 800 square feet and somehow makes it feel like a mansion because every object pulls its weight — and tells a story.

These are the design heroes we never see on TV.

What We Really Need Is a New Kind of Design Show

Imagine a show that doesn’t start with demo day. Imagine one that starts with a family sitting on the floor of their living room, saying, “This isn’t working. We’re drowning in toys. We need more storage, but we don’t want to get rid of Grandma’s cabinet.”

Imagine watching the process — not just the before-and-after. The brainstorming, the failed attempts, the compromises. The joy when something finally clicks. The improvisation when the budget runs out. The pride of making something work, not because it was easy, but because it was yours.

That’s the show I want to see.

One where the furniture isn’t new but loved.
One where people solve problems with creativity instead of cash.
One where the rooms are designed for living, not just for posting.

We Deserve Better Stories About Design

Design is not just for the wealthy, the sponsored, or the influencers with links in bio. Design belongs to all of us. It’s how we shape the spaces that shape us.

Real design is messy. It’s full of compromise. It’s patchworked together with late-night ideas and hand-me-downs and that one thing you splurged on because it made you feel something.

Let’s stop pretending that the only homes worth seeing are the ones that look like they belong in a catalog. Let’s celebrate the homes that are odd, lived-in, and deeply personal.

Because those are the ones that make us feel less alone.

Those are the ones that remind us:
You don’t need a crew of contractors and a stack of mood boards to make something beautiful.
You just need to start.
Right where you are.
With what you have.