House Hunters: Outside The Box Premiere Recap — A Theater, Bank Or Barn?

HGTV’s latest spin off of House Hunters, Outside the Box, premiered Monday night, and I have to say I was a bit disappointed. Maybe it was because I was super psyched for it and then when it didn’t quite deliver what I was expecting, I was let down.

House Hunters is clearly cheap to produce, so let me just say they clearly didn’t spend anything extra (including time) on this production. But I’ll stop complaining now and get to the recap.

For the first epode, we head to Texas (don’t we always?). Quirky Kris is a university vice president and she lives in a traditional Texas home with her two children and a lot of animals, including a pig named Hamilton. She calls herself a creative and says she loves shopping for vintage finds. One of her favorite things to do is to find something and repurpose it as something that it was never intended to be. So it should come as no surprise that she’s tired of her cookie-cutter house and has decided to think outside the box for her next abode.

Kris has decided she wants to find an old industrial space or business to transform into her home. She only has a $100,000 budget for the purchase and the renovation. Yikes, that doesn’t sound like much. I mean unless she wants to live in an old rundown barn (which she might just).

Her wishlist 

• history
• architectural details
• clean palette
• wide open spaces
• a lot of light
• tall ceilings

Kris really wants to stick to her wish list too. She doesn’t want her realtor leading her astray because that could be bad news. “I have a pig, so you know I have impulse issues,” she explains. Let’s see what she has to choose from.

Space #1: Former movie theater, $70,000

This former movie theater is a really large space — 6,000 square feet to be exact. It’s not exactly the open box she’s looking for, but she seems interested in the feel of the place. The actual theater part of the building is pretty open, however. She likes that it has never been renovated and says she’d want to be true to its original intent. The upstairs is more like a living space, so she could turn that into something new and keep the downstairs true to it’s purpose.

She seems to like the building, but it seems a bit too large for what she’s looking for. Let’s see what else she has to choose from.

Space #2: A former bank, $55,000

I like this building. It looks like an Old West bank. It was built a little later, however, in 1900. It’s kind of just sitting there by itself, so it kind of feels like a house. Which is probably why it’s already been turned into one. That means it’s not exactly a clean slate she was looking for. It already includes a living space and a bathroom and kitchen. But it could use a lot more work, in my opinion.

I don’t think she likes the idea of this space already being converted into a house. So I don’t she her going with this one.

Space #3: A dairy parlor barn, $90,000

OK, this is literally just a bunch of rundown barns. It isn’t even a little functional. And cows lived in there. I don’t even know what to say. I can’t even begin to visualize how this could be turned into a house. Can this is really an option? I can’t take this seriously. There’s no way she’s going with this space.

I think her only option is the movie theater. Unless this woman is even more quirky than she says. Let’s find out what she decided to do.

Kris has decided to go with the bank. Hmm. So this episode was built around lies. What kind of trickery is this. She said she wanted a clean slate so she goes with the bank that is already a house. And we don’t even get to see what she does with the renovation.  We get to see some renderings of her plans, but no final renovation images. Maybe they’ll give us an update later on.

I’m just not feeling House Hunters: Outside the Box yet. Maybe it’ll get better, but they definitely didn’t start strong with this one. What did you think of the premiere?