For 'Trading Spaces' pairs, suspense is building
By Ray Routhier CUMBERLAND — On Friday night, Ellen and Daryl Quinn invited a few friends over to say farewell to their kitchen. And like all farewell parties, this one was bittersweet. "I hope the cabinets go, I hate birch," Ellen said. "But I just had a new floor put in, so I hope they don't touch that." Unlike most people undergoing a kitchen renovation, the Quinns knew they would have very little to do with theirs. That's because the Quinns have been selected to be on the quirky home remodeling show "Trading Spaces," which has become a cult hit on cable TV over the past two years. On Friday, the Quinns were preparing for a "Trading Spaces" crew of 32 people along with some 15 vehicles. Two or three of those will be tractor-trailer trucks. The shoot was due to begin Sunday, with the Quinns and a "Trading Spaces" designer getting a $1,000 budget and two days to redo the kitchen in the home of their neighbors, Joyce and Steven Frost. Joyce and Ellen are sisters. At the same time, the Frosts will be remodeling the Quinns' kitchen with a designer and $1,000. Neither couple will be able to see or influence the work in their own home. The "Trading Spaces" crew films episodes all over the country, and will be in Maine until early next week. After filming an episode with the Quinns and the Frosts this past weekend, the crew was scheduled to do two more episodes at other locations in southern Maine. By tonight, the Quinns and Frosts will be filming the show's always-climactic final scene. Like all "Trading Spaces" participants, the couples will be brought into their renovated rooms with their eyes shut. Homeowners' reactions to the redesign have ranged from shouts and tears of joy to gasps of horror and tears of agony. "Oh, that's what you wait for the whole show, that reaction at the end," said Melissa Swett of South Portland, an avid watcher who was interviewed to be on the show this week but was not accepted. "When they cry because they like it, that's nice, but sometimes they cry because they don't like it." That's how "Trading Spaces" works. It basically turns home improvement projects into a half-mystery, half-soap opera for the Martha Stewart in all of us. Viewers are on the edge of their seats watching people try to dissuade a designer from dismantling the family's favorite ceiling fan, or wondering whether homeowners will laugh or cry when they see the bright red paint designs on their hardwood floors. And the designers add to the melodrama, because they usually have strong ideas about what a room should look like and don't always listen to the homeowners. Ellen Quinn, for instance, was a little startled to learn that the designer she'd be working with would be either Genevieve Gorder or Doug Wilson. Wilson, who is very funny on the show, has a reputation for stubbornly sticking to his own vision. "That scares me a little," said Ellen, 45. "I can't say there's a room of his I didn't like; still, it scares me." The Quinns and Frosts had said their preference for designers would have been Frank Bielec, a likable craft-maker who likes to do a lot of hand-painted designs, or Vern Yip, who's done some lovely things with fabric and pillows. The Quinns live in a 1960s ranch that Ellen says is decorated with a "country air," including oak furniture. She hopes the remodeled kitchen fits in. The filming of each episode follows each couple — it doesn't have to be a married couple, just two people - and one designer as they tackle a variety of projects from putting down hardwood floor and tearing out kitchen cabinets to building a canopy bed or a new entertainment center. They are aided by a carpenter and by host Paige Davis. The two sets of homeowners have to live close to each other, and have to sleep in each other's homes during the filming. Some of the more inventive room renovations on the show have been done by Wilson, who turned a family room into an Art Deco-style movie theater with platform seating and little recessed lighting fixtures in the aisles. He also transformed a bedroom into a train sleeper car, with a curved ceiling. Ellen said she was told to expect 12 to 14 hours of filming the first day; then, she and her husband would be given "homework," which is more work to do after the cameras stop rolling and often lasts late into the night. On the second day of shooting, the rooms have to be finished by 3 p.m., so that interviews with the designers and the homeowners' reactions can be filmed. "Trading Spaces" is going into its third season on the TLC cable channel and is seen weekdays at 4 p.m., Saturdays at 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. and Sundays at noon. It's developed something of a cult following and its producers get between 75 and 100 applications a day from people eager to get a $1,000 renovation project. People can apply for the show by going online at www.tlc.com and clicking on "Trading Spaces." |
