'Trading Spaces' is a switch-hit
By Daniel J. Vargas (Houston Chronicle) HOUSTON — At times, Frank Bielec feels as if he's traded places with a movie-star heartthrob of yesteryear. Recently he was perusing the aisles at a Lowe's Home Improvement Center, as he often does, when a woman caught a glimpse of him, stopped talking and turned pale. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fainted. Bielec caught her before her head could hit nearby lumber. When she came to, she wanted to know if it was really he — Frank, the designer from the TLC television show Trading Spaces. Indeed, it was the jovial, bowl-full-of-jelly designer/artist. Always the gentleman, Bielec bought her a bottle of water and made sure she was OK. Of course, everything was fine, because, well, he's Frank from Trading Spaces. "I know how Clark Gable must have felt, for one brief second," jokes Bielec, who lives in Katy, just west of Houston. Since hitting the air in the fall of 2000, Trading Spaces has become a hit with housewives, closeted designers, teenagers, men with a flair for decorating and others who can relate to having a room they would make over, if only they had the time and money. The show came to Central Florida last year in March to tape several segments in a Gotha neighborhood. Trading Spaces is TLC's No. 1 show in prime time and has a wood-glue hold on viewers ages 25-54. Each week, more than 6 million people tune in to watch friends and neighbors switch homes for two days to redesign rooms in each other's houses. Each home's owners choose which room will be redecorated, and they can make suggestions, but the designer (one per home) has the final say on theme, colors and layout. Anything in the room is fair game. Think of the designer as the queen bee who gets almost everything she wants, while the neighbors/friends are the worker bees who do the bulk of the sewing, painting, wood staining and tile laying. At the end of the second day, the revamped room is finally revealed to its owners. The catch: Although they get the help of a designer and carpenter, they're given only $1,000 for materials, and if they don't like the result, tough. They'll just have to live with it. Trading livesBielec's popularity starts with his easygoing, quick-witted nature. He has that Santa Claus resemblance when his glasses slip down his round, bearded face, and you just want to give him a big squeeze. "Two years ago, I was this little fat man who just mowed his lawn, but since I got this job, it has been amazing," says Bielec, whose wife, Judy, now keeps track of his hectic schedule with a Palm Pilot. "I feel like I'm in an episode of The Twilight Zone every day of my life, and I'm waiting for Rod Sterling to come on out." Not only is one of the show's most popular designers from the Houston area but its production crew was in town recently to tape three episodes that will air this month. Tara Playfair-Scott, a spokeswoman for TLC, says the show, the American version of the popular British TV series Changing Rooms, receives 500 e-mails and 75-100 applications a day from homeowners hoping to be on the show. "It's unbelievable when you sit back and watch how it has blossomed so much," she says. Trading Spaces, now in its second season, is not unlike a TV dramedy, with a regular cast of characters with personal quirks, senses of humor and sensitive buttons. The show has one host (perky Paige Davis, the designated clock watcher and bean counter), two carpenters (lanky, overworked Ty Pennington, who provides much comic relief, and adorable/agreeable Amy Wynn Pastor) and six designers (Bielec; shoeless photo fanatic Genevieve Gorder; Laurie Hickson-Smith, who always seems to go over budget; Hilda Santo-Tomas, who has a flair for the unusual; handsome Doug Wilson, who's a bit on the sassy side; and fabric-loving Vern Yip.) Why it worksNot every decorating idea is a hit, though, and that's what makes Trading Spaces addicting: the chance to see people's natural reactions to sometimes unnatural creations. One woman walked into her living room and started to cry, left the room and sobbed off-camera. Then there was Santo-Tomas' infamous idea to glue hay to a couple's walls. The owners just stared at the finished product, picturing their young children picking it apart straw by straw. On another episode, Santo-Tomas painted couches Pepto-Bismol pink. On a live "reveal" on Today, a Dallas couple picked apart Gorder's design of their children's playroom. They didn't like the polka-dot theme. They weren't amused by the dirt on the wall. And they hated the professionally constructed puppet theater. Most owners gush over their new rooms. Some are brought to joyful tears. Some jump up and down hysterically as if they had just won the showcase showdown on The Price Is Right. The show connectsCassandra Crowe, 24, of Houston, was a fan of the show as soon as she saw her first episode. She started taking her lunch break at 3 p.m. to watch the daytime episodes. "It's the suspense," she says. "Even the people [on the show] don't know the end result. And you can identify with having a room or an area in your house you don't like and wish you could change. And you can identify with being on a budget." Crowe applied online to be on the show with her co-worker and friend Amanda Horton. Months went by. Finally the call came: A representative of Trading Spaces wanted to know more details about their living rooms and to see pictures. A location scout took measurements and made sketches. On Feb. 12, they got the good news that they'd been chosen. Crowe and Horton live in an apartment. They received permission to paint and make changes. Trading Spaces set up shop March 3. The switch began March 4. Two days later, Crowe and her husband, Justin, went to see their new living room, a space once void of color. "It needed some oomph," she says. "It looks like an entirely different room," Crowe says. "I thought I was going to cry." A month later, she still raves: "I love it. I haven't changed anything. It's perfect." Things were almost as flawless when two mother-daughter teams, neighbors for 23 years, switched homes. Spanning generationsPaige Thomson, 24, contacted Trading Spaces because her mother's master bedroom needed help. It was beige (which most designers will tell you is not a color) and had 25-year-old furniture. "They couldn't hurt anything in there," recalls Thomson, a graduate student at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene. The bedroom now has white crown molding and a smoky-gray paint job to create a Nantucket feel. Antique frames adorn the walls, and the bed sports a stained headboard. As a final touch, Gorder moved in a cement bench from outside. The verdict: Paige and Carla Thomson adored it. Mostly. Carla Thomson, who isn't as big a fan of the show as her daughter, took down new curtains. And she plans to move the concrete bench back outside. "They truly did a good job," she says. "I was impressed. I was expecting black walls and a fabric headboard. They can come in and trash your house. I've seen them do that on the show." Their next-door neighbors, Gayla and Andrea Trammell, haven't changed a thing in their kitchen updated by Bielec. Before, it resembled the Brady Bunch's kitchen. It had apple-green counter tops. The wallpaper was green-and-white lattice with strawberries. The tile was avocado green. "It was lovely," says Gayla Trammell, the mother. Bielec used little besides paint to make over the kitchen. He painted the walls a warm mixture of gold and rust and complemented them with a caramel-colored floor painted to resemble rocks. "It's like he knew what I wanted before I did," says Gayla Trammell, who plans to add granite counter tops and tile to the kitchen. "I just love Frank. He's my favorite." |
