‘Trading Spaces’ team reunites; Beaver Falls native joins show
PASADENA, Calif. — Revivals: They’re not just for scripted series anymore.
TLC’s “Trading Spaces” returns Saturday (8 p.m. cast reunion show, 9 p.m. series premiere) a decade after it left the air, bringing back the original cast and introducing a new roster of designers and carpenters.
Newcomer carpenter Joanie Sprague is a Beaver Falls native who was first runnerup on the sixth cycle of “America’s Next Top Model” in 2006 under her maiden name, Joanie Dodds.
She’s now a finish carpenter living in Orange County, Calif.
TLC president Nancy Daniels said the network has considered bringing it back before in the years since production on the original series ended in 2008.
“It felt like this was the right moment,” she said. “There was a big swell of nostalgia hitting the media, and when we looked back, this was a cornerstone show for TLC.”
The format remains the same: Neighbors trade spaces and redecorate one room in each other’s homes.
Host Paige Davis is back and says the budget has been increased from $1,000 per room to $2,000 per room.
“It’s still a manageable and tangible budget for people looking to redo rooms in their homes,” she said. “One of the good things about ‘Trading Spaces’ is it [showed] attainable, relatable design and made interior design accessible to middle America as opposed to just the upper echelons of society.”
Carpenter Ty Pennington said the series made homeowners see they can do remodeling work on their homes themselves.
“We put the tools in the hands of homeowners for the first time,” he said. “Once you saw homeowners doing it, these people were like, ‘ Wow, we can do this, too.’”
Designer Vern Yip said “Trading Spaces” gives homeowners permission to try something unique rather than going with a trend or catalog design.
“Because we came on the landscape, we now have homeowners [who can make their] homes be physical manifestations of who they are without caring about what the neighbors do. They just want their homes tailored to who they are functionally and aesthetically.”