Watch Design on a Dime Online - Full Episodes

"Design on a Dime" is a classic of HGTV. In the early days, HGTV had too few shows to fill all of its airtime and the budgets were extremely low, often $500 or less. After the channel became a little more established, this showed aired with the relatively posh budget of $1000 for a makeover. It allowed for better quality of design while still being well within reach of the average do-it-yourselfer looking for tips, inspiration, and ideas.

Each episode pools the talents of three design professionals with diverse backgrounds. The cast of designers periodically changed, giving the audience exposure to different approaches and viewpoints. The show starts with a consultation with the client, a tour of the space to be made over and some discussion about goals and dreams. It then drops in on a planning session amongst the designers where strategy is discussed and each of the three designers contributes their unique take and agrees to do a specific portion of the makeover, contributing their unique skills.

The show then follows each designer around as they shop for affordable resources and use creativity and elbow grease to cover any budgetary shortfalls. They walk you through their problem solving processes step by step, whether shopping for just the right piece of secondhand furniture or how to fill in with homemade art pieces. They run into the occasional hiccup in their plans and share how they solved it and still stayed on budget. In the wrap up, they run through a detailed budget and tell you where the money went.

This is one of the best HGTV series ever created for the DIY crowd. It contains a wealth of tips and how to's while raising the bar on quality in terms of visual appeal and creative problem solving. The show was born during that wonderful time when HGTV was successful enough to have more than a shoestring budget but had not yet grown away from its roots as inspiration and education for the DIY crowd.