w e b c a s t

The webcast took place live on the Trading Spaces set, outside of Philadelphia in a suburb in the town of Shamong, NJ, on July 31 at 3 pm EST. The streaming audio webcast is archived and available on the TLC web site. If you're able to listent to it, I highly recommend it because print cannot replace the sound of Doug's lovely voice. Or fully capture his snarky sense of humor!

Because the interviewer was really annoying, I've chosen to edit out his comments and paraphrase the questions to make them more succinct. And yes, Doug really did say "gosh" all those times.

Q: Re the woman from Seattle, how do you feel when people don't like your stuff, because it's going to happen occasionally?

DOUG: Yeah, it is going to happen, and unfortunately we put a lot of hard work and a lot thought into these. A lot of times when they don't like it, and this really only happens on rare occasions, it's that people are scared of change. It's hard for them to walk in and see their space in a totally new way.

How do I personally take it? I think I've created rooms that are geared towards them and their tastes, and maybe they don't even realize it. They have not been able to give it a chance [to see that] things could be different, that "this could be me." I think that's what happened with the Seattle show. I think that if they would have just lived with that space for a few months, they would have changed their ideas about it. The worst part of that room was the fireplace. In the corner, it was just an eyesore.

She did make changes. I think starting that night she made changes. They painted the walls red the next day, they kept the chair rail. They removed the façade, of course. It was a beautiful thing. I personally went to her that night — she was at her neighbors' — and I gave her a hug and I said, "I'm sorry you're not happy with the room," and left it at that. I was proud of the room. It's one of my best work. I'm not going to apologize for the design of the room because there was nothing to apologize for. I was sad that she was not open enough to really take a look at it and see that it could be something different than what she already had.

About the Washington DC retro room...

It was wacky… Dez Ryan's Medusa lamp. It was interesting. Dez was a great, great person and we had a lot of fun. She only did five episodes. We were happy to have her along with us. The girls that I did the room for, they were a lot of fun. The guys were a lot of fun. It was nice to do something light and fun and something the kids really can identify with.

How many other people help on the show?

Well, as we're taping the show, there are certain times when myself, Amy Wynn or Ty, and the homeowners are taken away to set up for a camera shot. So there's some time that we lose when we could be working on projects, a lot of time. So we have extra help to compensate for that, so that it is an equal working time as if we were actually there doing it ourselves. It's not that we get tons of help just to get the job done. We don't. We get support help that would be equal to what we would have been doing ourselves if we didn't have the time away taping a television show.

Are you getting recognized on the street?

Daily. Yeah, it's really bizarre, very strange. People say "Doug" and I turn around. I think it's going to be a friend of mine and it's somebody I don't know. But they feel like they know me. And that's fine. That's great.

How long till they get down to asking for design advice?

[laugh] Immediately.

What is your favorite TS room to date?

My favorite room to date that has aired, I guess, would be… oh gosh… probably my Denver room. "Smoke screen." I like it because it is somewhat how I would live. It had a lot of artistic layers to it with the screens that were pleated. It had a touch of my home farm to it with the Xs in the doors and the rough wood used in the furniture. And it was a little quirky, like I am. [laugh]

Could you live in almost any of the rooms you design?

No, absolutely not. They just aren't me. I'm not designing for myself on Trading Spaces. I'm designing for the homeowners.

When you design a room, are you more concerned with creating a room that fits the homeowners' taste and personality or fulfilling your artistic vision?

Every room that I've designed, I've taken the homeowners into consideration. The point of the show is that people want to change, they want to see the room change and they don't know how to do it. We have these neighbors that they're working with, that time and time again conspire to, "well, this is what I want you to do for me" and "this is what I want you to do for me." Well, there's going to be no surprise if we just do everything that the neighbors are expecting to have done. So we sometimes take it upon ourselves to shake things up a little bit and push them to take risks for their neighbors that they normally wouldn't. I'm there to help push people to another level, a level that they thought that they couldn't go to.

No, I'm not interested in my own artistic ability. It's challenging and it's great to be creative and to have that constant challenge. But I can get my jollies somewhere else.

Have you ever met any contestants that have a natural ability to design?

Oh, there's lots of people out there who may have the ability to do this. There have been a few that have had some really good insights. The problem is that when you get any homeowners that are talented like that, they have good ideas but yet the ideas don't fit within the parameters of (1) the budget and (2) the two days.

Can anybody do a good room for under $1000?

Oh, steal from us. That's what we're there for. We're putting it out there so that you guys can copy us. At least that's why I do this. I want people to learn from what we do and say, "Yeah, we can do this too." Can anybody do this? I think that we can teach people to do a lot better than they've been doing. I'd be hard pressed to say, "Yes, of course, anybody can design a room for a thousand dollars." It's challenging. It's very hard to do. So just let us give you the ideas. Don't try it yourself, 'cause I need a job. [laugh]

What exactly does Doug use on his hair to keep it so slicked back, especially on the morning of Day Two?

[laugh] Water?

What about the uncontrollable curl in your hair? What type of hair products do you use?

You know what, I just put some gel— [embarrassed laugh] I can't believe I'm answering this question. Let's see, I use Nexxus Super Hold gel, or I use American Crew gel and [La Mode?]. The thing is, depending on how the show's cut, my hair gets curly in the humidity and when we're hot and sweaty. So sometimes it's curling up because we're just working hard and it's humid and sticky and we stink and we're grouchy and… I don't know.

Do you tape at a particular time of the year when it can be hot or cold?

Yeah. Right now it's hotter than hell in the Philly area and I wish we were up north a little bit. But we pretty much tape in warm climates throughout the year.

When you're designing a room, do you ever meet with the homeowners?

No, I don't meet with the homeowners at all. I receive a packet about two weeks ahead of time with some notes from an interview from a researcher, and I get a video of that interview. So that's what I have to base the room on. Just some thoughts they have with the homeowner and the neighbor, and the specs of the room. I get a drawing — floor plan — of the room. And I design — unheard of in the design industry — which is designing a room and never being in the space itself.

Does you consider other rooms in the home when you're coming up with your design? What sparks your design concept for a room?

We get pictures of the whole house sometimes so that we can get a feel for other things that are in the house that we may be able to use. My job is to design that room. The room is my client. No, I don't take the other rooms into consideration a lot of the times because we're there because the homeowners want change in their lives. So we're starting with that room and they can take that idea — maybe or maybe not, depending on if they like it — take those ideas and have them spill over into the other rooms. I look at this as a starting point for people to start changing the way they live, and changing the way they think about design in their own space.

Have people on the show asked you to come back and do their whole house?

Oh yeah, sure. In Kitona, NY, a room that I just did, they would like me to come and design for them. This happens a lot. I've only had one room that they didn't really like, and that's the Seattle room. There've been a couple of others that were lukewarm, but by and large people have really liked my spaces.

That woman in Seattle just made me laugh.

Well, all of America was laughing at her, it seems. And that's unfortunate, because she's a nice person.

Did you have to audition for TS?

I was in House & Garden magazine in April of 2000, featured in a color psychology article. Our production company was scouting for talent at the time, and stumbled upon the article, and gave me a call. I ended up auditioning and I got the job. I went through a process of sending them down a portfolio, newspaper clippings, magazine clippings, and my real portfolio, things that haven't been published. They responded well to that. Then I sent down a five-minute video of myself walking around my block in New York City just goofing on people. Of course, now they're going to get videos of people just walking around goofing on people to audition for the show, but anyway.... They responded well to that and flew me down to audition and I got the job.

Early on you seemed to go over budget and over schedule a lot. Why?

You design a room for a thousand dollars in two days and see how well you do. I think in the early days there were some shows that Al— the host assumed I was over budget and the tallies weren't as strict as they are. We were getting our legs on the show. I know I wasn't over a couple of times, and then all of a sudden in the designer interview she was saying I was over, and I'm like, "But… but… but…"

Does the money come out of your own pocket?

Yeah, I've taken money out of my own pocket for it. I just didn't want to hear the wrath [of the producers]. [laugh]

About the room pictures on the website…

These rooms were forwarded on to me. They all needed some help obviously. The New Jersey room, I mean, this is like nightmares of my childhood. Wood panelling.

What is that panelling called?

Faux wood panelling?

What are you going to do about that big pipe in the middle of the room?

I don't know. I'm still trying to get over the fact that I think murders were committed here.

This is the toughest space of all of them. I would just hang some — if you can't take the panelling down and have the money to sheetrock the walls and do them, I would hang some fabric on the walls. Just get rid of that panelling with some bright fabric. Get rid of those lace curtains unless you're 85 years old. Really, really not a good choice there. If you want to change your luck, close the damn umbrella. I don't think I'd leave that open like that. I don't know, this room, it's tough. Lighten it up with some paint.

You're not going to be able to change the ceiling?

No, I'm sure it's there because of heating — heat ducts, water pipes. You can level it out and do some creative treatment with an additional suspended ceiling where it goes a little higher to even it out. I don't have the answers here to some of my questions. What do they use this space for? What is the purpose of this room? Like the DC room where I created this crash pad/lounge/club space.

Did you pick this out?

They were picked by Discovery [TLC]. These were thrust upon me actually.

What is your current status?

Let's see, I am single... I am single. I'm 37.

Single and 37. Next thing you know, there'll be a Trading Spaces movie deal in the works.

I would accept that. Actually, there's talk of a Will and Grace. I think the perfect scenario for Trading Spaces would be Everybody Loves Raymond. How hysterical would that be?

What's your favorite color and why?

Oh gosh, I have a lot of favorite colors. I don't know if I actually have a favorite color but some of people out there would say that it's brown because I use brown a lot. Brown's a good accent color but it's not my favorite color by any means. I tend to go towards the sagey greens, if I have a favorite color. It's a soothing, sort of meditative color. It's earthy. So I guess if there's a color that's consistent in some of my palettes, it would be a sagey-type green.

What would you do to lighten up a room?

Uh, put a lightbulb in it?

Again, what's that room being used for? Is it an evening room? Is it a day room? There's so many ways that you can address that. How do you lighten a room? You can use lighter fabrics. You can use window treatments that will let the light through. You can add additional lighting, sconces and things.

Do you like skylights?

Skylights? Sure…

Is there a particular design out there right now that you find horrible?

I don't know. There are so many out there. [laugh] A lot of this new construction that's going on, their houses may look interesting from the outside, but the interior spaces are so difficult because you've got all these ceiling lines and all these things that are very hard to treat. Doing Trading Spaces all around the country, I find that consistent — that these newer homes are difficult to decorate.

For instance, look at this boy's room here. [Reading the homeowner's note] "…I'm looking for ways to add interest to the slanted walls." That's her question. What I would do right off the bat, let's go back to the DC show where I did that pattern for those kids in the downstairs den, or the LA show, the red and white very bold pattern. Go with something like that that will take your eye away from the slant. Also you could use some vertical stripes along the walls, tone-on-tone vertical stripes all the way up to the ceiling. You can address it that way. Or just paint the whole thing in a darker tone and call it done.

For children, would you go more with primary colors?

Absolutely not. It depends on how old they are. If they're infants and five and below, yeah, I think it's important for kids to have bright colors around them. That's just common sense. They need some color. They need to be stimulated. I don't think we have to treat young children, though, like babies until they're 14, 15. I'll probably get a lot of flack from the mothers around the country on that. [laugh]

Have you had any baby rooms to design?

No, I haven't.

Have you ever reversed the trend and given pink to a boy or blue to a girl?

Nah, I haven't given that a whole lot of consideration.

Back to the boy's room, how would you rearrange the furniture?

Well, I only have a picture of the corner of that room, so I don't know the floor plan of the whole space. But I think I would probably — they have the bed sticking out by the sofa there — turn it into the corner, for one. Maybe even cordon off the bed area with a screen there so that the sleeping area is separate from the sofa area.

When you look back at your rooms, do you ever want to change anything?

Oh, constantly. I annoy my producers here on set because, as an artist, I'm constantly changing. There's some designers that come in here, and they have their plan, and everything's going to be done this way. This, this, this, this. I come in and it's like a loose palette. I'm like, "Okay, fine. We've got something here in the back yard we can use as an art project. Let's throw it in, it'll work." I like to create as I go along. I like to see the room develop and then make changes if I can. That's hard. Given the parameters of the time and budget, I just can't send somebody out every five seconds to get something. That just doesn't happen. So I allow myself some flexibility in my design plan, but I'm restrained.

When you have major creative differences with the homeowners, do you get the final word?

Absolutely. [laugh] That's my schtick on the show. I'm the bad boy on the show, that's my role. You know, it's tongue in cheek. I mean, I'm not that bad. At least, I hope not.

Do you hang out with folks on the show after the show?

Oh, absolutely. We're all pretty friendly… most of us.

You don't all get along?

Oh, we all get along, we all get along. Sometimes you get along with others better than you do with some. We're like a family here. You know what, you love your family but you don't always have to like 'em.

Anybody on the show posturing like they're going to move on?

Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but we're having a lot fun here. We've just started season three and we've got 60 episodes to shoot this season. I'm not sure what the future holds right now for any of us. The world is a very fragile place, and we're just looking forward to making good TV this year.

Do you have any say in the editing process?

I have no say in it whatsoever. I see it when it airs a lot of times. In fact, some of the shows, I haven't even seen in full yet. So I never know what's going to show up.

It was astounding when I first started seeing the show. I'm like, "Oh, my gosh!" The first few episodes, I'm like, "Oh, that's how I look? Oh, I gotta change those glasses, I look like a nerd." It was a whole growing pain to try and figure out who you were on camera and what you've established, and where to go with that or not go with it, and how you fit into this whole picture.

It's factual entertainment. We've moved on from a reality-based TV. This is factual entertainment. I'm entertaining you guys. I'm there creating rooms, having fun, showing people new and inventive ideas. And it's entertaining hopefully.

There's always tension as to whether or not people will like it.

Absolutely, yeah.

I must have dozens of emails with girls' phone numbers — girls, not women. You have that youthful thing going on. One of them asks, what do you like to do in your free time, wink wink nudge nudge?

[laugh] That's sweet. That's great. You know what, right now I don't have a lot of spare time, but I live in New York City and I have a lot of friends who are in the entertainment industry. I had famous friends before this started and I've got new famous friends. I try to get out and see what they're doing, whether it's Broadway or a little show off Broadway. Go to the movies, hang out in a live music club or something. Get some culture, some things that I don't normally get in Shimong, New Jersey. Not that it's a bad place, it's beautiful out here. It's just that you're not going to see a Broadway show.

Have you done the Tonight Show yet?

No, I haven't. [dryly] I'm going to have to talk to the publicist about that.

Does you have an agent?

No, I don't have an agent right now. When I got the job, I didn't get it through an agent. At this point, I wouldn't say I don't need one, but I'm very busy with the show right now. There are always opportunities that I'm open to, so who knows?

What's your shooting schedule?

We're shooting for ten months. We'll shoot 60 shows in 10 months. It's a tough schedule. Sixty shows, yeah. I'll do 15 of those.

How do you manage your work outside of the show?

The shooting schedule is tough, but we do projects, all of us, when we're back in New York. I shot back to New York from Philly Friday night, worked the weekend to get a project out, and got back here Monday afternoon. So you do what you gotta do.

What advice would you give to a young person who wants to become a designer?

What I would say is get out and look at all the magazines you can. Go to the museums. Get a lot of culture and design history into you. Start mentoring someone. I was fortunate enough to work with Albert Hadley. Follow someone you identify with. Intern with interior designers, even in high school summers, whatever, if you're really interested.

Who on the show would you trust to design your favorite room?

No one. No, I would, I would. Absolutely. There's a few people I would trust. I love Hildi and the way that she is forward-thinking and pushes the envelope. There's some stuff that she does that's not for me, but a lot of her style I identify with.

How tall are you and how much do you weigh? TV adds weight to everyone and you could use some extra weight.

[laugh] [sarcastically] Well, thank you. [laugh] I'm 6 foot and I weigh 180 pounds.

What can you tell us about the August 31 Berkeley episode?

August 31 is a great show. [A] sorority-fraternity show with Genevieve and myself. There's a lot of fun we had on that show. I'm redesigning the guys' chapter room and Genevieve is redesigning the girls' sitting room, TV room. Tune in because I do a very interesting room clear for this episode, something that we haven't done before.

Are you surprised by how many young people watch the show?

What is most gratifying for me in doing Trading Spaces is being able to show new genenerations design. Normally they wouldn't be exposed to it. All across America and the world here, watching Trading Spaces, we're able to show them that they can do things differently than what they're accustomed to, than what they learned from their parents or their friends. I love that. I wish that I had had that experience when I was a kid. I didn't. Unfortunately, a lot of the public school funding and the arts programs were stripped away. I was lucky enough to be able to get some of that later on in life, but had I had that in my earlier days, I might have approached life a whole lot differently.

There are probably a lot of interior decorators who just don't know that they are interior decorators.

I am one of those people who did not know they were an interior designer. It [just] happened, to tell you the truth. I moved to New York to be an actor and ended up washing windows on the weekends while I was going to acting school. Then took the skills that I learned from working for interior designers in high school and college and started to develop my own handyman construction business. Went on to do painting, then decorative painting, and picked up all those techniques. And then by doing the decorative painting, got decorator showhouses and ended up designing my own spaces in those houses. Which then led me to do my own interior design. So it just happened. I didn't know I was an interior designer.

This room looks like the occupants still watch The Honeymooners. Do you take that into consideration?

Well, sure. Absolutely. In my real work, I take a lot into consideration. [laugh] It's not a Trading Spaces: two days and a thousand dollars.

This space here, it's got the fireplace, right? From floor to ceiling? Well, first of all, they've got these strange windows beside it. I would hang curtains from the ceiling to the floor beside the fireplace because it balances out that narrow fireplace. It's a bit phallic here [laugh], this fireplace detail. I don't know what the contractor was thinking. I'd paint all that out — all that color — and put a big long mirror going straight up and a wood mantelpiece on that, some crown moulding in the whole place. They can afford to put some money into this room. They can do something interesting with the walls. I would paint the walls like a deep color.

What would you do with that wet bar that you can't see in the picture, with the cushion on the front?

[laugh] I think we'd camouflage it somehow.

Is this the first or second day of the episode you're doing now in Shamong?

This is the second day. They're pushing me out to get this room finished, so I'm in trouble with my producer.

You have lots of fans out there.

Well, thank you. I thank everyone out there who's been supportive of the show and of me and what I'm doing on there. I'm going to continue to give you some hopefully good rooms and some entertainment along the way. Know that it's me and it's tongue in cheek, you know.

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