
Long, long ago, before Property Brothers, shiplap, and 10 million iterations of House Hunters ruled the home improvement marketplace, there was Trading Spaces. A dorky little show that put TLC on the cable map, Trading Spaces launched in 2000 and asked âwhat if you gave your neighbors $1,000 and free rein to re-do a room in your home?â The show is widely credited with inspiring the home-renovation craze in television, and birthed not only the âMove! That! Bus!â career of Ty Pennington, but also a number of spin-offs, including Trading Spaces: Family and the Saturday-morning staple Trading Spaces: Boys Vs. Girls. It also birthed a number of hideous, âletâs just hot glue fake flowers to the wallâ-style rooms that have hopefully long since been redone.
When TLC announced about a year ago that it was bringing Spaces back, fans and gawkers alike wondered how it would adapt. Host Paige Davis (once known professionally as Paige Page thanks to a marriage to actor Patrick Page) was back, but what about the rest of the both beloved-and-maligned designer gang? And would the money go up? The short answer is that, yes, theyâre back, and yes, the money went upâmarginally.
Designers Doug Wilson, Frank Bielec, Genevieve Gorder, Hildi Santo-Tomas, Laurie Smith, and Vern Yip, have returned, as well as carpenters Ty Pennington and Carter Oosterhouse. Theyâll be joined by designers and carpenters Brett Tutor, Joanie Dodd, John Gidding, Kahi Lee, and Sabrina Soto. Each episode features two different designers and carpenters paired with a couple, whoâs then tasked with keeping their wackadoodle, TV-friendly designer under their $2,000 budget. (Fortunately, the homeowner also gets to pick one item the designer âmust useâ out of the Wayfair.com pop-up store, which can come in handyâespecially if the designer canât afford to buy a rug, or didnât make plans for lighting.)
This time around, however, the couples are supposed to have at least a little more say as to what goes on in their neighborsâ and friendsâ rooms. At least, thatâs what designer Doug Wilson tells his family in the new season premiere. He pretends to intently listen to the conservativeâsome might say boringâMelissa and Keith as they describe the âisland resortâ theyâd like to create for Melissaâs sister and brother-in-law. Then, true to Doug form, he comes back seemingly minutes later with some dark brown paint (for the ceiling, of course) and a huge roll of dirt-cheap burlap, which theyâll be stapling to the walls. You know, so it looks like Hawaii. Melissa and Keith, to their credit, are not happy, telling the camera that their family members are âgoing to be so disappointed.â Paige worries that theyâre being bullied into doing something they donât want to do, but also cautions them that they should âremain open-minded,â because burlap walls arenât really that wacky.
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Speaking of wacky: Hildi Santo-Tomas. Over in the other house, the woman everyone loved to hate the first time around has decided to turn Melissa and Keithâs guest room into âa deconstructed penguin,â thanks to a convoluted story about both Melissaâs love for penguins and some swanky silk Hildi found somewhere. Armed with her trusty overhead projector, Hildi enlists her homeowners, Ryan and Michelle, to paint a tedious kaleidoscope of blue, peach, yellow, black, and white all over three of the roomâs wallsâplus the ceiling. She makes some âartâ by riding a mountain bike over some paint pans and some canvas (as Paigeâs voiceover notes, actually buying art can âeasily put our designers over budgetâ) The remaining wall is entirely covered in mirrors, because itâs Hildi. TyPennington is also charged with executing some sort of Murphy Bed, except he doesnât have the money for the âexpensive hardwareâ a Murphy Bed requires, and thus just builds some ungodly-heavy-looking bed-on-a-pole built from pressed wood and requiring door locks to keep it shut. Hey, Traders canât be choosers, right? Ryan and Michelle try to rebel by working slowly and failing to finish their homework of painting the ceiling, but Hildi charges forward, refusing to compromise on her unyielding Hildi-ness, despite the wishes of the family.
In the end, Dougâs room actually doesnât turn out all that badâprovided you love brown and donât mind that your master bedroom walls will collect dust for eternityâwhile Hildiâs room is something Keith clearly abhors, though Melissa congenially says sheâappreciates how much work they put into it,â admiring the utility of theMurphy Bed. (Called a Pennington Bed by Hildi, probably because she legally canât call it a Murphy Bed.) The sister homeowners hug as Paige cheerily wraps things up over some jaunty music, and Hildi and Doug are no doubt whisked off to some alternate location, unconcerned as to whether what they made is actually appreciated or enjoyed, since all they were really aiming to do was to make good, entertaining television.
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As long as thatâs all you want Trading Spaces to beâentertaining televisionâthen the reboot succeeds. With so much aspirational home programming in the marketplace now, youâre better off going anywhere else for design ideas, advice on how to pick backsplashes, and sound financial decisions that may increase a houseâs market value. Trading Spaces, for better or worse, is and has always been about using as little money as possible to create as myopic a room as possible. Some good ideas may sneak through, but even nowâ10 years after it went off the airâthe show still lives and dies on its well-meaning absurdity.