No one has mentioned the train-wreck room that Doug did in the fraternty house. Granted, the place was filthy when he got there, but he went almost $500 over on this monstrosity!
I read an “after the show” column somewhere on the Crying Pam episode. (Sorry, don’t remember where I read it.) Apparently the fireplace facade was installed so incorrectly that it blocked a vent or something and had to be removed for safety reasons.
The living room was not the original room they wanted done. The first room was too big, they didn’t want to do a bedroom, and this was their third choice.
Part of the show requirements are that you turn off your phone. Pam had an ill relative in the hospital, and she was unable to check on her condition during the taping.
Finally, Doug apparently got very nasty when told the homeowner’s were looking for a Nantucket theme, and designed his plan using an obscene pun of “Nantucket” on the paperwork, which the homeowner’s later found in the trash.
I think Doug could have handled it better, something like, “I know the homeowners don’t want the fireplace painted, so we’re going to do something else.” He planned to do something else all along…Ty had all the wood. Why pitch such a prima donna fit?
Because, for all of TLC’s commericals about “Life Unscripted”, the show is in fact almost entirely scripted. All of Doug’s “I’m the designer and they’ll do what I want and like it” stuff you see on the show is at the producer’s request, because people eat it up. It’s for this same reason that we still have Hildi. After every show where she ruins someone’s house, there are a million people on the TS boards going “OMG, did you see what Hildi did?” and the producers know that people are watching.
No tension, no drama, no viewers. That’s the bottom line.
That’s certainly true. I’d love to see the behind-the-scenes stuff where designers and producers probably ‘plot’ a little to get reactions out of the homeowners.
I don’t assume it’s done all the time, but I’m sure when they get a reactionary-type person, the producers let the designers know to go ahead with that ‘wild’ idea stuff.
The designers have all the measurements and photos of the rooms and house beforehand and have their designs well in order before shooting starts–otherwise the material procurement would take up the entire two days and nothing would get done.
That’s why it’s annoying when the designers ask the people what they have in mind–they have no intention of doing anything the people suggest other than what they’ve already designed.
That bugs me too. I like when in one episode Doug said “What do you guys see for this room?” and the homeowners said "Does it matter?
It’s hardly fair to blame Hilde for the weather, for heaven’s sake. As for the other time she sprayed a chair that the owner didn’t want sprayed, hi, this is your neighbor, please tell her that you don’t want the thing sprayed so she can tell the designer beforehand.
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned the ultimate Hilde diva moment, when she wanted to dye the carpet. The neighbor refused to allow it and Hilde came back with “I can do whatever I want. This is Trading Spaces and everyone in America knows if I want to rip that carpet out I can.” Go Hilde!
Anyone else notice that they have gotten much better about screening the homeowners then in the first season. Season 2 still had a few idiots, but by Season 3 the homeowners are much more fun to watch, and you don’t want to hurl a boot at the TV.
Doug is just an act- he likes the back and forth and it makes good TV. He does give in on stuff, but people forget that. I also think the producers set up the most problematic homeowners with Doug.
Kia is simply not very good. Unfortunately I doubt the producers will get rid of her like Alex or Dex.
Edward was a very pleasant surprise.
The key for Gen-- is she using a lot of wood? If so, it will be good. Nobody is as good with wood based designs as her.
Vern is still the king though. He has a keen eye for design and structure.
I watch way too much Trading Spaces. . .
I think Vern and Doug are both excellent designers, but Doug (whether scripted or no) is such a prick. Frank is a pretty good designer but he’s so charming I’d like to hang out with him. Gen is the same, but not only is she good and cool, she’s also smokin’. Hilde I don’t like because she’s too outre and I don’t think she’s that good, and Laurie creeps me out – for some reason I’m afriad she’s gonna just go Norman Bates one of these days. I don’t watch the show very much any more, but my wife likes Edward and Kia, not so much.
–Cliffy
P.S. I think Paige is really fun.
Well, I can start a TS thread after Saturday’s shows if people are interested…
Yes, please. (I think it’s been tried before, but didn’t get this much response. I’m guessing more people watch it now or something.)
Yeah, but I think for the most part the first season homeowners were just really unfamiliar with the concept entirely. A lot of the designs were not that wild, but all the same everyone seemed to blanch whenever paint cans would come out. “You mean we’re going to PAINT?!?!”
Also I’m thinking the word on Dez is that she left on her own accord because she makes absurd amounts of money selling her lamps and didn’t think being on the show for SAG scale was worth the hassle. There was also a designer named Roderick Shade who was only on one episode and didn’t come back because he just wasn’t into it. Bet he’s sorta kicking himself now, haha. (He’s like the Pete Best of Trading Spaces.)
I loved TS as soon as I started watching. I would lust after Ty and my brother would lust after Alex. (I’d still rather her to Paige Davis. Paige is just too perky sometimes.) Anyway, I agree with many here:
Vern rules. He’s professional, good-natured, and committed to designing a room that the homeowners like.
Laurie is my second favorite. I know nothing about design (Me while watching the show: “What the hell are sconces?”) but I love how she can tie fabrics together. And the ones where she puts little art projects on the wall are some of my favorites.
Frank is too country for me, but that kitchen with the metal wall is my favorite TS room of all time. (And here I thought I was alone.) And he’s such a card.
Gen is hit or miss (I still haven’t forgiven her for that damn moss wall early in the show), but the basement she did that she made to look like a log cabin was just fabulous. It was so cozy, I wanted to fall asleep just looking at it.
Doug and Hildi have both pleasantly surprised me a few times, but on the whole, I hate their complete disregard for the HO’s wishes. They’re prima donnas, but that’s what makes people watch them, I guess. I think they just think of the rooms in a purely artistic sense, not in a practical sense. Sure, it’s neat to see a living room divided into quadrants (Hildi) or a kid’s room with a Route 66 theme (Doug), but very few people want to live in those rooms.
The rest of the designers I haven’t seen quite enough of to form a concrete opinion. (Except Dez. I’ve seen quite enough of your rooms, thanks.)
As a sidenote: Does anyone else check out www.televisionwithoutpity.com to read their snarky recaps? I may not always agree, but I am always entertained by TWP’s take on each episone.
I couldn’t believe the frat house monstrosity. Lime Green walls? Good lord. It was a nightmare, and you could tell, when the guys walked in that they were just… speechless.
However, the room they did for their two female friends, in the ‘basement where light is banished forever’. I hated that room too.
I can’t stand pillows on the floor, or something that looks like it’s a mattress thrown on the floor with a slipcover, “Oh, look–it’s a couch now”. Yeuck.
One of my favorite ‘theme’ rooms was the young teen girl’s bedroom that… I want to say it was Doug… made into a sort of middle eastern-maybe indian-harem sort of room. With the low bed, and the blues and the art, I just adored it. It would have been just the sort of thing I’d have liked when I was 16.
Especially because when I -was- sixteen, my father decided I’d want a girly room, and so painted it hot pink, without even consulting me. Do you know what hot pink does to the brain after prolonged exposure? Yeuck.
As for Frank and his country ‘fetish’, I think he’s been pegged unfairly, and while he does sometimes incorporate that element into his rooms, I really like his style, and the fact that I have not once seen him put a wooden goose with her little wooden gooselets following after her on a shelf with heart cutouts.
I really enjoyed the basement he did for that couple that had more books than some small town libraries. And the shakespearean theme he gave the room.
Yeah, but he did make that god-awful Pupelina Pig weather vane thing and those horrible homeowners-and-Frank-with-hair faces things and that wretched fireplace screen with the homeowner’s family represented on it. And he paints those bloody vines on everything that can’t run away from him. So while he may be unfairly pegged as country he’s not unfairly pegged as kitschy crap.