Hi all! After a long absence I’m back!
What do you get when you add, 2 couples, 2 rooms, 2 designers, 2 days, 1 carpenter and $1000.00? Give up? You get my favorite show from TV’s Learning channel...Trading Spaces. Trading Spaces is a take-off of the British TV show called Changing Rooms.
The cast of the show consists of, The Host, Paige Davis, an effervescent, bubbly woman who gets 2 couples(The home owners) together and explains how they have 2 days and $1000.00 to totally redecorate 1 room in each others home. Paige throws in 2 designers from her ’’stable’’ of some of the best new designers around. It could be, Frank Brelic, the rotund gentleman who has a passion for country type style..Laurie Smith, who likes to go with the elegant southern styles..Kia Dickerson..Edward Walker..Christi Proctor..Rick Rife..Genevieve Gorder, who usually giggles throughout the show..or my 2 favorites, ’’Anything goes’’ Hildi Santo-Thomas and Doug ’’Out of the ordinary’’ Wilson.
Then Paige throws in a carpenter..Amy Wynn Pastor..Ty Pennington or Carter Oosterhouse to round out the ’’cast’’ for the 2 days and the fun begins!
You can see an ordinary, bland bedroom turned into a sedate Japanese teahouse or turned into an out of the ordinary room with feathers or flowers glued to the walls! You watch white walls turn into purple with yellow stripes and just about anything else you can think of. Have you ever seen what happens when you paint kitchen appliances? Or rip out walls or fireplaces? On this show fun happens! The homeowners are given tasks by the designers and they have to do what the designer says. Even if they really don’t think the other homeowner will be happy with a black ceiling with stars painted on it and walls painted day-glo orange, they usually go along with the designers and see what happens in the end.
Some of the designs I’ve seen have been absolutely beautiful and remarkable for only $1000.00 and some othe designs have made me cringe!
Not all the designs come out as planned and chaos erupts and rooms are changed in mid design. Money runs out, colors turn out horrid..but in the end you will see how the homeowners and the designers and the carpenters pull it all together.
When the homeowners are finally let back into their own homes after 2 days, you see reactions anywhere from jumping with joy and tears of happiness to throwing fits and tears of anger and/or horror!
The show gives you so many really good ideas for designing you own home and so many techniques for painting and wall coverings and just about anything else you can imagine.
There is also a version where 2 families(usually 2 parents and 1 or 2 kids) trade spaces and convert rooms in each others homes too. It’s amazing what being on TV can get a child to actually do! I love watching the macho husband sitting at the sewing machine sewing up throw pillows and slipcovers and then in turn watch the wife get down and dirty with mortar, cement and power tools!
It’s a great show and I would highly recommend you watch it at least once, and then you’ll be hooked, just as I am.