Trading Spaces
Page 1 of 3
June 22, 2001

My friend Rudy works for a television show called Trading Spaces. I started watching Trading Spaces because she worked on it, but it quickly became one of my favorite shows. I told Rudy that if an opportunity arose, I would really like to see the show being taped. Earlier this year, I got my chance. Rudy told me that they would be taping three shows in New York in April, and suggested I drive up from Virginia to watch the taping. I agreed. Oh boy, did I agree!

I don't know if the taping I witnessed was typical. It was certainly eventful, and it created a memorable episode. Afterwards, I asked Rudy's permission to write about my visit. She agreed, provided I waited until after the show aired. In fact, I waited well beyond that date; the original airing came sooner than expected, so I decided to wait until the show re-aired on June 22.

A couple of introductory notes are necessary for those who are unfamiliar with the show. Trading Spaces is, more or less, a home design show. Two neighbors trade houses. Each neighbor works with a professional designer to completely redesign one room in their neighbor's house, in two days and for no more than one thousand dollars. At the end of the two days, the neighbors return to their own homes to survey the changes. If this sounds familiar, you may have seen the British show on which it is based, Changing Rooms, or the Canadian equivalent The Decorating Challenge. The show airs seven days a week on TLC, at 4 PM Monday-Friday, 11 AM Saturday, and 12 noon Sunday. The episode described here will almost certainly air again in July or August; I'll post something about it on the New Thing page when it airs again.

Throughout, I will refer to the houses by the name of the designer assigned to them, i.e. Vern's House and Doug's House. Also, with the exception of the regular cast and the homeowners, I will not refer to anyone by name, though in some cases you will be able to figure out who I'm talking about by scrutinizing the credits. (Rudy is a pseudonym.) The cast for this episode is as follows:

• Alex McLeod, the host
• Douglas Wilson and Vern Yip, the designers
• Amy Wynn Pastor, the carpenter
• Alison and Lorraine, the homeowners working with Doug
• Jessica and Mary, the homeowners working Vern

Lastly, this is not a strictly chronological recap. I went back and forth between the two houses all day and reconstructing exactly what happened when would be an exercise in futility.

When I arrived on Sherwood Drive that morning, I found Rudy waiting for me on the front lawn. Even if she had not been there, it would have been easy to find the right house, because it was the only home on the block with a catering truck in front of it and a glare screen covering one window. This was, Rudy told me, Vern's house, and it was a good time to go inside and meet people, because the crew was at Walt Whitman's house with Alex, recording the intro.

Once inside, I met the sewing coordinator. The very existence of the sewing coordinator was for a long time a closely-guarded secret. His name was in the credits, but they never referred to him on camera. The need for a sewing coordinator is obvious; any given episode features a huge amount of sewing, some of it very complex, and the homeowners and designers simply wouldn't have time to do it all themselves. The sewing coordinator, therefore, stays behind the scenes and makes sure things get done on schedule. Later in the day, after he had finished all his tasks and packed up his equipment, I caught up with him and asked why he was never shown on camera. He explained that it was a logistical decision. Each episode, he pointed out, already features eight "characters," and adding a ninth would be tricky. Makes sense.

Rudy and I continued upstairs, where I met Vern, Jessica and Mary and got my first look at the room they were working on. The walls were painted and they were just starting to mount the sconces for the giant wall clock. Even at this early stage, it was pretty clear that the room was going to be fabulous. Vern was very nice, if somewhat distracted. Vern is a very focused individual, and he was very aware of the time constraints, so while he was unfailingly polite, I could tell that I wasn't commanding his full attention. Jessica and Mary were very friendly too.

I also met the associate producer assigned to Vern's house. Since the camera crew was gone at the time, she was able to spend a little time chatting with me. Each house is assigned an associate producer, whose job is to manage the production work going on in the house -- such as deciding what should be taped and what shouldn't -- and to make sure the schedule stays on track. Given the incredible amount of activity going on at any given time within each house, you can imagine how busy they are.

I get the impression, though, that working with Vern makes life easier for the associate producers. His intensity of focus helps keep things running smoothly.

Soon enough the camera crew came back, along with the show producer. Whereas the associate producers are responsible for one particular house, the show producer is responsible for the entire episode. This particular producer is, I think, very good at her job; she has produced several of the most memorable Trading Spaces episodes.

There was also a supervising producer on site. The supervising producer is to the entire series what the show producer is to a specific episode or the associate producer is to a specific house. Normally, the supervising producer doesn't visit a site. She was in Long Island, she explained, to do publicity. A Newsday reporter was scheduled to visit that afternoon, and the supervising producer was there to meet with the reporter as the official representative of the show.

I owe a large debt to both the show producer and the supervising producer. Once Rudy had taken me to both houses and introduced me to everyone, they gave me permission to wander back and forth between the houses unescorted. Obviously, there was a practical reason for doing so -- neither Rudy nor either of them could afford to take the time to walk around with me -- but it was still very generous of them.

With the camera crew back and the sconces on the wall, they were ready to tape the clock hands being put in place. The crew went into the room to set up the shot while the producers and I went into an adjacent room to watch on the monitor. Action! On the monitor, I saw Jessica holding the clock hands and Vern pointing to where to place them. She put them in place and asked for the time. Vern glanced at his watch and started to tell her, but got no further than "it's" before all three producers yelled "STOP!" They didn't want him to say what time it was, since doing so would limit their ability to edit it into the final cut. For the second take, when Jessica asked for the time, Vern glanced at his watch, gasped and said time was too short to worry about setting the clock, and pulled Jessica off-screen. Perfect!

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