Trading Spaces
Page 2 of 3
June 22, 2001

Rudy and I left Vern's house to head over to Doug's. The other house was not on the same street; it was around the corner, about about a tenth of a mile away. Again, it was obvious which house we we heading for. I could see another glare screen, but more obvious than that was the large white canopy that marked the carpenter's workshop. My pulse quickened. This is what I had come for. I was about to meet Amy Wynn.

As we approached, I saw she was attacking a four-by-four beam with a chisel. She was, I have to say, just as beautiful in person as she is on TV. I wanted to jump up and down and giggle excitedly, but I played it cool. Rudy introduced us; we shook hands. Mine was already shaking actually. I gibbered senselessly at her for a moment before Rudy led me away to meet the others.

The show likes to give the impression that the on-screen carpenters -- Amy Wynn does half the shows, and Ty Pennington does the others -- do all the carpentry, with occasional assistance from the homeowners and Alex. There is, however, a second carpenter who stays off camera. Normally it's just the two of them. On the day I visited, there was a third person helping in the workshop, a friend of Amy Wynn from her days as a theatrical carpenter. Like me, he had come to the set to visit; unlike me, he helped a lot.

Amy Wynn and the others had three major projects underway the day I visited. Vern needed a desk built for his room. When I first arrived at the workshop, the pieces had already been cut for the desk, and a production assistant was painting it. Later, after the paint dried, I think they took the pieces over to Vern's house and assembled it in the room.

Since we couldn't go into the house -- they were in the middle of a shoot -- Rudy picked up a paintbrush and started helping with the desk while I talked with Amy Wynn about the other project. She was working on a frame for a mirror. It was massive: six feet tall, made of four-by-four beams. Also it had to be set at a 45-degree angle, so cutting the joints was a delicate job. Since the beams were so large, it would have been difficult to make all the cuts for the joints with a power saw; instead they used a handheld power saw to make the vertical cuts and chisels to break away the wood between. A very time-consuming project.

The third project was a bed frame, also for Doug. All the wood had been cut for that and had been laid in place in the back yard, ready to be assembled. The original plan was to assemble the bed in the room, but the show producer, after watching the struggle to carry the mirror upstairs -- it was tremendously heavy -- decided that it would be good to assemble the bed outside and then recording it being wrestled up the stairs. So while Amy Wynn mounted the mirror, someone assembled the bed outside and Doug and Amy Wynn were taped maneuvering it upstairs.

While we were outside in the workshop, Doug came out to talk with a crew member about a problem he had with the pump for a fountain he was building. When he finished, Rudy asked if we could tag along to see what he was working on. He agreed, and we followed him into the back yard, where he and his team were working on some lamps. Well ... Doug was working on some lamps. Alison and Lorraine were stretched out on chaise lounges, watching the action.

After this episode aired the first time and people found out I had seen it taped, I was always asked about Alison and Lorraine. They were not shown in a positive light, and a lot of viewers were outraged at their behavior. So I was asked: what were they like?

Well ... I liked them. They were very friendly to me. And while I was there, I saw them working on several different projects. But this was the second day, and as far as I can tell from watching the episode, most of their most outrageous behavior happened on the first day. But even so, they did sometimes have to be prodded to start working, and on more than one occasion I heard them complaining about what they had to do. And I was told by the crew that Doug was running behind schedule because of the problems with his team. So I have to that it wasn't an inaccurate portrayal, although they could possibly have redeemed them somewhat with second day footage.

Doug, on the other hand, was a delight. He was not quite so focused as Vern, and except when he was on camera he always had time to chat with me about the projects. He seemed very proud of his fountain; he liked to talk about it, and he seemed really happy when the replacement pump arrived and he was able to get the fountain to work. The fountain was very nice. It was a very simple, rustic design: Two six-foot four-by-fours with small twigs attached to the front with wire staples, sitting in a large metal washtub.

I'm proud of that fountain too, because I played a tiny role in its creation. The fountain was constructed and tested in the backyard. Once Doug was satisfied with it, he disassembled it and carried one of the beams into the house; Alison followed with the pump and plastic tubing. Rudy had told me earlier that visitors to a taping were almost always put to work, but I had not yet been asked to do anything. But here was my chance. I picked up the other beam and took it in. It was heavy, and not an easy thing to carry up a flight of stairs. Nevertheless, I made it. Doug looked surprised, but pleased. I think mine is the one on the right, but I can't be sure.

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