Trading In Trading Spaces - When the Facelift Flops, The Homeowners Take Action

Washington Post ^ | 5/29/03 | Annie Groer

[SaveTheChief]

Then I hope you're ready for a bit of hilarity, because the sequel to "The Fast and The Furious" opens soon. You can expect to see teenagers applying neon lights, flourescent paint, and spoilers so tall they can be soon over the top of the car to their own vehicles. I hope you don't mind noise pollution as well, because every kid with visions of being a bad ass will probably peel out of the theater in his family's Honda Accord.

The cars you describe are exactly what I had in mind. To me it doesn't make sense doing all that work to a car that isn't all that special to begin with, isn't worth a great amount of money, and has no special performance value. But maybe I do not understand cars, or teenagers very well.

[Treebeard]

My Comments about the show's crew:

Amy: Cool, don't know how her stuff holds up after everyone leaves, but she seems to be the most mature one of the whole bunch at times. Love to hear her true opinion of all the designers.

Ty: Needs a hard slapdown once in awhile to get him back on track ... however, watching him luge with the gold ottoman right into Frank was a HOOT! He needs medication, and I'd love to hear what he really thinks of the designers.

Frank: Love Frank. I love how he can just freehand stuff on the walls and it looks great. Would love to work with him or have him decorate my house.

Laurie: She gets on my nerves. I especially couldn't take her when she was preggers and what's a polite way of saying "I'm tired of seeing your son in every episode you're in .. Save it for once a season!?!" Thought the lady that had Laurie escorted out was a wack job. Her rooms are not for real living.

Doug: He gets too moody too soon and doesn't help with the work. His stuff is usually too weird or inappropriate for me. Don't like the way he treats people. Loved the soroity girls who stood up to him. I think a lot of his stuff is revenge for having boundaries placed on him in his designs. Was actually hacked that he apologized to the mom/daughter team that ditched their homework and was appalled that they were expected to do labor on the show.

Vern: I have only seen a couple of rooms that he did I didn't care for. I like the reds he uses, love his kids' rooms. If I got a pick, he'd be the one to do my house while I worked with Frank.

Genevieve: Too ditzy for life. Her wood basement was her best room ever. The cigar bedroom, moss wall, rusty filing cabinets, etc, make me fear her touching my house.

Hilda(i): She's scary. She's egotistical, putting a little of herself in every room ... putting her likeness up on a wall with millions of dots (can you say PAINTED OVER QUICKLY!) putting herself in the same league with 20something actresses by including pics of her body in a bachelor pad, (after putting pics up the previous season in a couple's living room), foisting a bird she named HILDA on unsuspecting HOs, deliberately not giving the neighbors time to nix her wack job ideas, painting a couch pink, painting a family heirloom chair black, and the list goes on and on and on and on ...

Edward: Too dependent on cording to outline the walls, but otherwise doing a good job. Seems to have an issue with Ty, lol.

Kia: I so desperately want to know what Ty would have said. She comes off as a "wannabe" ... as if she saw the first seasons of the show and decided that she could wreck as much havok as anyone else. Well, Kia, you most certainly have. The graveyard bed, the cammo living room when the military couple asked specifically NOT to have that in the home, the tacky artwork she puts up on the walls, the Egyptian waterpiece that (thankfully) died before installation. I sense a little tension betwixt her and Paige, as if even Paige has given up on her too and just agrees with her to save time and move on with life.

Alex McLeod: Glad to see her go, too whiny about having to help and not much help when she does. Girly-girl to the max and I hate that type. Sad to see her get host billing on Joe Millionaire and then get 5 minutes tops on the whole series ... she should have bowed out gracefully because that really makes her look horrible.

Paige: Sometimes she gets on my nerves, wish she'd wear clothes that actually FIT. Feel for her being the only one to do ALL the episodes with no tag-team partner. No wonder she gets a little high maintenance once in awhile. What can you say after seeing hideous designs from certain designers time after time after time ???

Wonder who has to approve the designs and what they were thinking about some of them (Hilda and Kia spring to mind). Anyway, that's my opinion so far of these "designers".
Mrs Chemyst

[SaveTheChief]

She's there for entertainment value. It's fun to see what horrifying thing she'll come up with next.

Horrifying is the word. I still have in my memory, a design inspired by a Tiffany art glass box. The room was pained a relatively bright shade of blue, and white spray paint was applied to the walls and bedspread with no particular purpose.

I get the impression that she just pulls ideas out of thin air without any specific vision of an end product. Doug works the same way, but at least I get the impression that he sincerely wants to create a somewhat classy, if whimsical design that the homeowners will enjoy. Sometimes he is off the mark, but I think he usually does a good job. If Hildi ends up doing a good job, I think it is a combination of just dumb luck, and her team working their collective butt off to make it all look good.

[Dead Dog]

Actually not all T-111 is crap, it just all looks like crap. You would know it if you did have it. It's basically a press board or plywood with a fake venier. Think of it as that cheap fake walnut panaling for the exterior.

If chocolate milk comes from brown cows, T-111 comes from fake christmas trees.

[honeygrl]

One of the designers (i think it was Doug) actually rummaged through a couple's bedroom drawers for a picture and blew up a picture of the wife modelling in lingerie (apparently a private model session as a gift for her hubby) and made it the huge focus picture on the wall of their living room. I remember the girl saying she hoped her mom wasn't watching. I was impressed that her hubby didn't punch Doug for it. I mean, it was a flattering photo of her but she was in skimpy black lingerie. It was obviously meant only or her hubby's viewing.

[Cathryn Crawford]

I LOVE THIS SHOW!!!!!!!!!!

One of my all time favorites.

[not_apathetic_anymore]

I've done that too. I painted a powder room in a faux finish a deep burgandy. Its quite a statement and I like it, but it took about 5 coats to get the right color. I ended up thinking that dealing with reds was difficult.

[Xenalyte]

Xena's Guy says he "only" did three coats in here, but it's a two-story room and he had to rent a scaffold, AND do it by himself 'cause we closed two days before Festival started.

Whatever. It's gorgeous in here.

[ladyinred]

Oh this is great! I loved reading it. I would never let Hildi anywhere near my house! I have seen that idiot staple plastic flowers to walls of a bathroom, and horrid moss all over the walls of a living room! She is just the worst!
Great fun to read, thanks!

[ladyinred]

I agree, I like Changing Rooms much better too! The British are so much better at this sort of thing, although they have their horrid makeovers too!

[ladyinred]

Doug is an egomaniac, I detest his attitude!

[not-an-ostrich]

msn.com home page has an article on Ty "dissing" team. Actually not too bad. Just Doug, Hildi, and Kia. Well not really Kia...he said "I'm not even going to go there". Said Doug was probably left at a lot of gas stations as a kid. Said Hildi needed to be on medication.

[ladyinred]

Actually the article says they painted the red wall, dark green. It is just appearing black in the photo! I think the red is hideous personally. I saw the episode and freaked!

[not-an-ostrich]

Ty also said he'd like to see Vern's receipts...says his rooms look too good for $1,000. Also said most of the "designers" aren't really designers. This is validated on the Discovery fan site bios.

[ConservativeConvert]

That was actually a pretty good one from Doug...he's pretty inconsistent.

[ConservativeConvert]

Like her frighteningly horrific "Flowers in the Attic" makeover with the astroturf grave/bed!

[Skywalk]

Noticed that DU had almost ZERO threads on Lord of the Rings, or basically any other damn thing in the world except their vicious hatred of republicans.

[Skywalk]

The tricked out imports are called ricers. The idiots who modify them RARELY modify actual performance components of the car. They earn digust for the premium they place on style over substance.

A stock Camaro will smoke even performance-enhanced import compacts. All the money they spent on tricking out the Honda Civic and they coulda had a Camaro or a decent sedan that looks good and handles well(and looks like a car a wealthier person would buy)

Many Asians, though not exclusively, are into the mod craze. Hey, put a Japanese racing sticker on your car, that'll make it faster!

[BoozeHag]

I think the BBC version "Changing Rooms" is brilliant! The American version "Trading Spaces" is queer... But then I adore Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen.

[not-an-ostrich]

I've watched that ??Junkyard Auto?? show once. It was fantastic. 3 teams of auto racing mechanics have to build some type of vehicle with parts from a junkyard and then drive it in 3 races...drag, rally, oval.