Ty, Paige return for renovated ‘Trading Spaces’
Ten years after show went off the air, TLC brings back familiar faces, format in revival of home-improvement hit.
NEW YORK – Are you ready to trade spaces again?
Ten years after it went off the air, TLC has revived its hit home-improvement show Trading Spaces, with perky host Paige Davis and hunky carpenter Ty Pennington. The premise of the series remains the same: two sets of neighbors swap houses and redo a room in two days with the help of designers and carpenters. Ahead of its return Saturday (8 ET/PT), Davis, 48, and Pennington, 53, chat all things Spaces with USA TODAY.
❚ The spirit of Spaces remains intact. Aside from a budget increase (from $1,000 to $2,000 per family) because of inflation, the format remains unchanged, which Davis says is an asset. In 2005, she was fired from the
show when TLC wanted to try it with no host, upsetting many fans. “I don’t think they were underestimating me personally, but I do think that the show suffered when tentpole elements of it were changed,” Davis says. “Because we started this new genre of television and suddenly we created competition for ourselves, the network was always trying to keep the show fresh. But at a certain point, if you try to be like everybody else, too often you’re no longer like yourself.”
❚ There’s no bad blood with other home-improvement series. Although Spaces inspired many imitators, including Flip or Flop, Design on a Dime, and the just-shuttered Fixer Upper with Chip and Joanna Gaines, “there’s no rivalry between any of the shows — there’s room for everybody,” Davis says. In fact, “I would love for Chip and Joanna to be guest designers on our show.”
❚ New and old faces. Spaces welcomes three new designers and two new carpenters this season, as well as several returning cast members, including Hildi Santo-Tomas, Doug Wilson and Carter Oosterhouse. Oosterhouse was accused of sexual misconduct in December, which he has denied, and TLC investigated. “He’s never been anything but beyond professional and kind,” Davis says. “Everybody in our cast and at the network is really happy that he is a part of the new season.”
❚ Viewers are more decor-savvy, which is a blessing and a curse. Thanks to social media, led by Instagram and Pinterest, as well as TV shows and magazines about interior design, “people have been able to see so many more visual images and get more ideas that way, so we’re hoping they have more open minds,” Pennington says. “At the same time, it’s a bit more challenging for designers to be original, because you have to come up with something that has never been done.”
❚ The bad reactions are often the most memorable. While they love to see happy homeowners, Pennington admits that some of his favorite episodes come when rooms didn’t meet expectations, leading to dramatic reveals. In one of Spaces‘ most infamous episodes, “the neighbor actually wrestled her friend, blaming her for the (wall) color choice,” Davis remembers. “I’m not proud of how I handled that reveal because I stood there doing nothing, primarily because I thought she was kidding. And then it dawned on me: ‘Is she kidding, or am I about to become an accessory to murder?’ ” Jokes Pennington: “That just shows that color can have a very strong impact on your mood.”
❚ Ty, the designer? After years of lending his carpentry skills to shows including Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and American Diner Revival, Pennington is trying on a new hat this season: designing a room in an upcoming episode.
“I won’t give away whether the homeowners liked it or not, but in my opinion, you knocked it out of the park,” Davis says. Adds Pennington: “I enjoy being a carpenter. What was nice was I had no responsibility — I could just be out in the backyard making whatever the designer has requested be made for the $30 they put into the budget. But as a designer, you really have to take the homeowners through every step of what you’re doing and make them believe you have an end goal.”
❚ Would they ever room-swap? Davis says she’s “too OCD to trade spaces. I’d need to have a very detailoriented person in my house.” If Pennington designed her room, he’d draw inspiration from her Broadway past: “In your room, I would do silhouettes of shadows backstage, almost behind-a-curtain kind of thing. Not cheesy.” Quips Davis: “And then would you paint your image peeking from behind a curtain, to haunt me in my dreams?”