‘Trading Spaces’ returns to TLC, as comfortable as an old sofa
TLC’s “Trading Spaces,” one of television’s most primordial home-improvement reality shows, was ending its eight-season run in 2008 at roughly the same moment that American homeowners experienced a disastrous housing bubble-burst, pushing the economy into the Great Recession.
Though it was technically impossible to indict the cable channels — especially HGTV — for their role in the quick-mortgage fantasia, the connections were plain to see: The schedule was (and still is) littered with shows that spur house envy, encouraging viewers to live in a constant state of renovation, makeover and upgrade. Homeownership became the highest expression of citizenship, while decor became the chief signifier of class. “Trading Spaces,” which first premiered in 2000, helped ignite that craze, making it safe to waste entire Saturday afternoons watching home-improvement shows. Yet it hardly deserves all (or any) of the blame.
The show returned Saturday, essentially unchanged and contagiously giddy, full of its usual surprises and reveals. Looking at the first of eight new episodes, one is reminded of “Trading Spaces” conceptual purity: It never goaded anyone into ditching their old house for an open-floor-plan, granite-countertop McMansion beyond their means. Its core principles were to work with what you have, on a restrained budget. It preached a DIY ethic, asking couples to swap houses and redo a room, aided (some would say strong-armed) by a crafty professional designer and carpenter.
One underlying reason the show was a hit (having been adapted from a British version called “Changing Rooms”) was that it took us briefly inside the everyday strangeness of marriage and