Paige Davis has seen hundreds of room transformations from her years hosting “Trading Spaces.” And though the vast majority resulted in beloved transformations, a handful of the redesigned rooms were hated by the homeowners.
Yes, you all know about the room with hay-covered walls, and our readers have probably watched this woman break down over her new-look fireplace, but Davis can’t possibly defend the “Prison of Love” bedroom, could she? After all, it had two friggin’ toilets supporting a bench, jail-cell bars covering the windows, and a terrifying mural that would make one want to return to a nightmare.
“I actually thought that room was really neat! I really liked it,” Davis told TheWrap. “I did!”
OK, Paige, maybe you shouldn’t be considered a tastemaker.
“The true, original concept is that ‘I know my neighbors and I know that they’re stuck,’” Davis explained. “‘Their home doesn’t represent the people that I know anymore. They’re stuck in the past or they’re too afraid to move forward, and I can envision for them the home that they should have, and I think they should trust me, and I’m gonna trust them, and we’re gonna trade.’”
“But for pure logistical [reasons] — out of absolute necessity, the designers need to plan and shop the room ahead of time,” she added.
That kinda kills the purity pitch about personal touches provided by a neighbor. But “Trading Spaces” certainly isn’t the only reality show to liberally bend the word “reality” — it was just among the first and most popular.
And those few gaudy rooms you couldn’t bear to watch the reveals of? The host has an excuse for her designers that we can kind of buy.
“It’s a little bit the same as seeing a high-fashion runway show, of couture. Or flipping through the pages of Vogue,” Davis said. “And I don’t mean that as the ‘Trading Spaces’ rooms are high-end — I mean it like they’re very high concept. So, you might see some crazy couture fashion design image in a Vogue magazine, with the crazy makeup. And you look at that picture and say to yourself, ‘Who the hell would ever wear that?’”
“Well, the ‘Trading Spaces’ rooms are very much like that, too. They often — not always — but some of them are out-of-the-box ideas and what some people would think are crazy ideas,” she continued. “They’re meant to inspire you.”
And to inspire high ratings, we imagine, from viewers saying to themselves, “Who the hell would ever sleep there?”
“Trading Spaces” returns to TLC on Saturday at 9/8c.