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I think I speak for a majority of husbands when I say that Trading Spaces, While You Were Out, and shows of their ilk should be banned from the airwaves. They are not only addictive to wives who become hooked on watching them; they also endanger the domestic tranquility of the home. These shows can be as disruptive a force to a marriage as a tsunami can be to a seaside town.
In case you are one of the couple of people who doesn’t have cable TV, this disease has already spread to the broadcast channels. They are the instructional home improvement shows that make wives believe that with a little cash and a touch of paint they can transform any room into a picture worthy of the pages of Home Decorating Magazine.
Husbands, if you have cable TV and your wife has not tasted this evil fruit yet, you may want to cancel it now before they do. Sure you may miss your ESPN and Fox Sports Net, but if your wife becomes addicted to these shows you won’t be watching those channels anymore anyway. It seems like every week a new show pops up that becomes their current favorite. Trust me when I tell you that on cable, they are on constantly. You can find one of these shows on 24/7, 365 days a year; it has become a plague that you can’t escape.
But Trading Spaces and While You Were Out are far and away the most devious. The premise of these shows not only makes it look like you can create an oasis for minimal funds, they also make it look like you can do it in 48 hours or less, regardless of the difficulty of the design. According to them anyone can change their environment with the wave of a paintbrush and a couple of furniture modifications, and it can be done in a blink of an eye.
The problems don’t start immediately. It takes time for the average person to be convinced that this is actually something that they can do. But I can guarantee that if you have a room that is in need of renovation it is only a matter of time before the repeated viewings of these shows begin to take their toll. Well that toll was about to be paid during my holiday vacation.
My wife, Stacey, was tired of looking at the Navajo white walls of our house and after repeated viewings of the aforementioned shows decided the week between Christmas and New Years was the perfect time to begin her assault on our boring walls. Her target, our kids’ bedrooms. Surely six days would be more than enough time to paint two rooms. As we all know, it only takes 48 hours to completely renovate a room on TV. It wasn’t as if we were going to be making any major structural changes, which is a good thing because I am nowhere near Ty Pennington, the super carpenter used on Trading Spaces.
We also didn’t have any designers like they do on the show, so Stacey decided to let our kids pick out the colors to be used in their rooms. After all they are the ones who will be spending the most time there. Their choices? Alex chose Dark Blue for the wall color and white for the trim, Rachel chose Lilac Rose for her walls and a dark plum for her trim. Being the only person in this house who has ever painted a room, I tried to point out some potential problems we could encounter with these colors, but my concerns fell on deaf ears.
In my efforts to keep the peace I tried to keep any future opinions to myself because there was no way I had any control of this situation. This was going to be a learning experience for all involved. I knew my enemy and I was no match for the power that the TV screen held.
Not only that, this was Stacey’s choice for how to spend her time off from work and she was looking forward to it. It was like a rabid baseball or space fan going to baseball or space fantasy camp. She was going to be Paige Davis, the host of Trading Spaces, and she was going to make her fantasy come true. You go girl!
And go she did and I must admit I was impressed that she didn’t shrink from any of the steps required to complete the task. That does not mean that at times when I did slip and let my opinions out or when rolling the walls I did not adhere to always rolling in a “W” pattern that tensions did not rise.
Nothing divides a couple more than interior design or should I say the execution of it. My parents told us during our little home improvement show that the closest they ever came to getting a divorce in their 50-year marriage was while installing a cork wallpaper in the entry hall. Apparently this stuff was all the rage back in the 60’s, but just like today, nobody mentioned what a bitch the stuff was to install. It was the last time that wallpaper entered their lives.
During this week I saw more of Home Depot, which by the way is the main sponsor of Trading Spaces, what a shock, than I had seen in the entire time since it opened its doors, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I love going there. Nobody was more excited about it opening than I was. Unfortunately during these visits instead of relying on my knowledge I had to listen to the employees at the store, which as I found out, it all depends on who you talk to.
When it comes to paint, unless you are a professional painter, you have to hope the person in the paint department knows what they are talking about. Well we got a glimpse into what happens when they do and when they don’t. Without going into too much detail just remember these things and you should be fine when shopping at the paint department at the El Monte/Temple City Home Depot. 1) Primer paint is everything, 2) When looking for information talk to Brad or Fernando, and 3) If Johnny is the only one in the department when you go, leave and come back when Brad or Fernando are there.
Due to Johnny’s lack of knowledge we lost an entire day of the limited time we had to complete our, well, Stacey’s task. I must admit that most of the time I have had good luck when asking an employee there a question. Granted the question was usually where something was, which anybody who works there should know. But when you are supposed to be a specialist in a given department we blindly follow what you are telling us. Well, like I said earlier this was a learning experience for all involved.
As the week of clutter and paint fumes came to an end the renovation part of Stacey’s Trading Spaces boot camp was complete. Complete as far as the painting was concerned. Now came the reconstruction faze which to be honest still isn’t finished yet. There are still piles of crap scattered around my house that still haven’t found a home.
I was hoping that after indulging my wife’s little fantasy that she would see that it wasn’t as easy as they make it look on TV and that maybe she would abandon future forays into this arena. But no such luck. If anything she is more empowered by her achievements and is going full steam ahead. Next stop, our bedroom.
Well there goes my Martin Luther King holiday. I sure hope there aren’t any good games on that weekend.
The Shrub Speaks: We're nearing the end of a year where -- of substantial progress at home and here abroad -- and abroad. Dec. 20, 2004
B.D.’s Response: It’s nice to see that W is starting his second term with his usual knowledge of geography.
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