Vicariously Living the HGTV Life

There are some things one is loath to admit. Too painful, too embarrassing, too forbidden. I can’t live in denial forever, though. Time to face the truth. Time to bite the bullet. Time to confess my secret.

My name is Howard Rosenberg, and I’m an addict.

No, not that kind of addict. Whadda you, crazy? My drug is the ultimate guilty pleasure, the narcotic I’m powerless to resist.

Home & Garden Television.

Make that our drug. My wife is hooked too. Where we once took in nightly reruns of “Seinfeld” and “Law & Order” en route to the humdrum of predictable prime time, we now mainline HGTV and float dreamily in calming, glazed-over euphoria, impervious to the zigzagging stock market and little Elian; instead getting high on outdoor entertaining ideas, terrific tassels and slipcovers that work.

The last time I wrote about HGTV, I shared its valuable tips about wallpapering your books to coordinate with your overall design plan. All right, I was skeptical. If they were wallpapered, how would you read the titles?

My mind is now cleansed of doubt, though. My wife’s too. After getting doped up night after night, we now surrender to the good feeling.

And are we something these days or what?

You want tasteful? You want design-literate? You want the last word on velvet shower curtains or mauve window treatments that bring out the colors of your cats? You want Mr. and Mrs. Fancy Pants Know-It-All about remodeling everything from mud rooms to laundry rooms?

Do we know the best spring shrubs to plant? Do we know how to make everything old in our house new again? Do we know how to make that extra bedroom a place no guest will dare leave? Do we know how to make our cramped spaces look like the inside of Hearst Castle? Do we know how to give our crummy house curb appeal? Do we know how to display our collectibles? Do we know how to color coordinate the matting on our artwork with our throw pillows?

Actually, no.

What throw pillows? What artwork? What collectibles?

HGTV communicates in a distinctive idiom. Not only do owners of HGTV-featured homes nearly always reserve cozy nooks where they can “curl up with a good book,” they inevitably have collections that they display, items so arcane or exotic that you can’t imagine how they ever got started with them.

And this is my collection of blue and white porcelain turds.

But not us. Discounting, that is, the stacks of old newspapers my wife collects in a corner of the kitchen, even though I keep telling her that newsprint color tones do absolutely nothing for the yellow linoleum.

One peek at us at home in our schmattes and Chris Casson Madden, elegant and tasteful impresario of HGTV’s “Interiors by Design,” would pass out. They’d have to bag her and pack her off, babbling.

Sorry, Chris, you caught us at a bad time. Come back when we’re not hosting a cobweb convention.

My wife’s favorite HGTV series is something called “Modern Masters” that features artists making design-related stuff from such natural materials as stone, clay and wood. The other night, this guy in Colorado chipped, chiseled and carved intricate detail into a door that had more going for it than our entire block. True genius.

But HGTV’s swanky celebrity homes? Not interested.

Its arts and crafts? Not interested.

Quilting? Take a hike.

One of our HGTV favorites is the new “Fantasy Open House,” whose host, a refreshingly earthy, plain-speaking Los Angeles stand-up comic named Claire Berger, is the antithesis of most of her colleagues’ reserve and la-dee-dah as she travels the United States, visiting extravagant mansions and other multimillion-dollar homes up for sale.

An antichrist in this cathedral of chic, Berger toured one estate whose petite owner was so refined that her lips never moved when she spoke. What was that all about? Another early mansion had a stainless-steel library (excluding the books), another featured a dining room table valued at $365,000, and another housed the owner’s $12-million worth of antique cars.

“Fun floor,” said Berger.

HGTV’s most bizarre, most seductive series, though, is innocuously named “Dream House,” with some of these home-building sagas turning out to be nothing less than nightmarish melodramas.

There was Dean Henney, for example, the obsessed, angst-ridden Washington, D.C., bachelor who each week fussed, kvetched and whined about the problems he faced--nearly all self-made--during months of tearing out and rebuilding an old townhome from the foundation up. If he wasn’t losing his job and running out of money, he was running out of time and patience. Or his materials weren’t arriving, or his workmen and friends were teed off at him.

And why not? We were teed off at him.

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After all of that, his masochistic adventure ended with him putting the townhouse that he had slaved over up for sale and moving to New York.

Then there is architect Bruno Reich, whose own 11-episode odyssey--he’s been building the same Columbia, Md., cottage for 16 years--”Dream House” is now rerunning. Nothing wrong with Bruno that getting a life wouldn’t remedy.

Henney was bad enough, but this guy is really fixated, and we find ourselves shouting at Bruno and begging him to please green-light the oak trim and beam in the ceiling before he drives us out of our minds.

Here is HGTV’s description of what happens in a coming episode:

“Bruno reveals friction that has been occurring between Melinda, Lara and himself over the kitchen design. All three attend a meeting of the village board, and a decision [is] made to let Bruno’s chimney remain as is. Bruno and Melinda pick out wedding invitations.”

Later, Melinda has a baby, she and Bruno clash about the kitchen design, and Lara moves out. Who is Lara? Don’t ask. All I can say is that HGTV swears none of this is staged.

Of course, the real fun of HGTV is watching it and feeling like you’re watching extraterrestrials.

Take “Garden Architecture,” a show almost too bad to be true. One regular is a woman who wears a frozen grin that just begs to be hit with a cream pie, and instructs viewers in an irritating voice how to make cutesy garden projects--like faux pots--that they could buy for $1.95.

An even bigger hoot is the guy in the series billed as a garden maven. No place to entertain in the garden? Duh. He shrewdly produces a table and chairs and waits for the applause. Or better yet, he usually ruins what he’s supposed to fix by filling the yard with tchotchkes.

Then there’s “House Hunters,” which follows young couples in their quests to buy a home. The show always concludes with them getting a call from their Realtor with about three minutes left informing them if their offer on the place they want was accepted.

The tension builds? Did these kids get the house? Of course, they got the house. They always get the house.

After watching HGTV religiously, we now share its values, and are even thinking of redoing our kitchen. We watched “Kitchen Design” the other night, and were bowled over by what we saw.

You won’t believe this--get outta here--but there’s a machine now that actually does your dishes for you.

Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He can be contacted by e-mail at calendar.letters@latimes.com.