HGTV: 10 Throwback Decorating Shows You Forgot You Loved

In the early 1990s, a man named Ken Lowe got the idea to create a home renovation and gardening cable network. That idea came to fruition in 1994, and the decorating genre exploded in the cable market. While new HGTV shows have a steady following, there’s nothing quite like the former days.

In the 2010s, house-flipping and real estate shows dominated the network. Nearly three decades ago, HGTV was much more focused on teaching people at home how to decorate in a sensible but fashionable manner. Take a walk down memory lane with some classic HGTV shows.

10 Room By Room

Room by Room is that classic HGTV show that children of the 1990s even remember watching with their parents. Shari Hiller and Matt Fox hosted the first HGTV show ever. They got started in 1994 and continued Room by Room for fourteen years.

Matt and Shari truly did go room by room to teach people at home how to decorate. These legends started out with a public access show in Cleveland called The Look of the Home, and their more recent project is a PBS show called Around the House.

9 You’re Home

Kitty Bartholomew is another HGTV pioneer. The distinguished lady had a popular show called You’re Home. Kitty taught viewers at home how to save money and still decorate with style. Her tips were practical and helpful, saving people money as they improved their homes with every episode.

8 Gardening By The Yard

Paul James is “The Gardener Guy.” He hosted Gardening by the Yard from 1996 to 2009, but that’s not all he did. Paul James was also the show’s writer, creator, and senior producer, shooting most episodes right in his own yard. He’s been a master gardener since 1983 and studied botany, plant pathology, and plant psychology. It was fun to learn about gardening from such a friendly and knowledgeable host.

7 Decorating Cents

Sense? No, cents. This cozy show taught viewers how to use common sense and save their pennies on decorating projects. Joan Steffend was the lovely and inviting teacher, guiding HGTV fans through countless creative projects. She possibly invented the “life hack,” always sticking to a budget with every idea. Decorating Cents began in the late 1990s and lasted for over a decade. It’s the kind of show that people wish they still had.

6 Designers’ Challenge

Designers’ Challenge was in the next era of HGTV, and it was hosted by none other than Chris Harrison from The Bachelor. The show began in 2000 and ran for seventeen seasons. This is one of the first notable examples of an HGTV show working with an actual homeowner in each episode. The homeowner had to choose from three different floorplans for the space in need of a remodel.

5 Design Star

HGTV Design Star aired from 2006 to 2013 and closely mirrored the layout of The Next Food Network Star on its sister network. Design Star took a gaggle of young design hopefuls and put them to the ultimate test of group and solo challenges. The grand prize was an HGTV show for just one winner. Of course, half the reason people watched each week was to see who got eliminated, but it was actually interesting to see what the designers had to work with. One of the most memorable challenges involved designing a creative space out of a blank set, known as the white box.

4 Divine Design

Divine Design with Candice Olson aired from 2003 to 2011 on HGTV. Candice’s show is memorable because of her signature jazz music in the intro credits and her flair for decorating that even included her wardrobe. Candice wasn’t a one-woman show, though. Her crew brought a lot of laughter and innovation to the show’s projects, especially Chico, the expert electrician.

3 Dear Genevieve

Genevieve Gorder is known for the TLC show Trading Spaces, which recently got the reboot treatment. In 2009, Genevieve joined HGTV’s lineup with Dear Genevieve, a show that was part advice column, part room makeover.

Viewers supposedly submitted letters to the network outlining their design problems at home, and Genevieve would help one homeowner transform their space at a time.

2 Design On A Dime

Design on a Dime started in 2003 and continued the valuable trend of money-saving designs. The show started out with a thousand-dollar budget for its projects, later increasing that to $2500. Some of the themed room facelifts were better than others, but it was always fun to see what the team could come up with on a budget.

1 Deserving Design

Vern Yip became one of the biggest stars of HGTV in the late 2000s. Like Genevieve Gorder and Candice Olson, Vern Yip was a judge on Design Star and an all-around expert in interior design. Vern’s Deserving Design series began in 2007 and ran for several seasons. The goal was to give deserving families the gift of a space that felt like home. Vern would have the homeowners choose between two rooms they wanted done, but he would secretly surprise them by always completing the second room, anyway. This philanthropic show would be such a wonderful thing for the network to add back in.

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