Paige Davis Recalls ‘Trading Spaces’ Designer Going Against Homeowners’ Requests

When it came to transforming rooms on Trading Spaces, the show’s designers didn’t always listen to the homeowners’ requests.

Trading Spaces aired on TLC from 2000 to 2008 and returned for a two-season revival from 2018 to 2019. The series followed two pairs of neighbors who swapped homes and, with help from the show’s designers and carpenters, redecorated a chosen room in each other’s homes.

The series wasn’t afraid to feature unique room designs, sparking mixed reactions from homeowners and fans alike. On the latest episode of her Revealed: Trading Stories with Paige and Butz podcast, host Paige Davis questioned designer Doug Wilson about some of his choices on the show.

“Why did you choose, of all episodes, of all homeowners, to do the white and black episode you had in mind on a home where the homeowners specifically said, ‘Do not touch our completely refurbished, newly stained woodwork?'” she asked.

Wilson candidly replied, “Then pick another f**king room for us to do! If you just renovated your room, why are you going on the show? There’s so many people out there in America who really needed a room redone.”

 

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Defending the homeowners, Davis stated, “But homeowners were, in my opinion, homeowners allowed to protect certain items, and they specifically protected, I believe, that woodwork.” Wilson retorted, “If it was specifically protected, I would not have touched it.”

On the podcast, Davis recalled another time Wilson went against instructions from the show’s crew. “You had been told, ‘Do not throw the couch out the window. Do not throw the couch out the window.’ And you were gonna do it anyway, and you did it anyway,” she shared. “And when you did it, you threw a couch out of a second-story, third-story window of a frat house in Berkeley, and it took the gutter off. It was an $8,000 fix.”

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Wilson said he had no regrets about the choice, stating, “It was well worth it.”

Davis noted that she had to break the news of the damage to a producer. “I was like, ‘We have to tell you, he threw a couch out the window and ripped down the thing,'” she said. “And she just paused. She was like, ‘Did we get the shot?'”

Elsewhere on the podcast, Wilson shared a “funny story” about their late co-star, Frank Bielec, who died in 2020 at age 72. “Vern [Yip] and Frank were getting ready to leave the hotel. I had just finished my episode, so I was still there leading that day,” he said. “So, Vern pulls up in the biggest SUV with three New York City telephone books, sitting on. And so, Frank’s standing outside and smoking a cigarette. He probably didn’t even know that Frank smoked.”

Wilson continued, “He’s smoking a cigarette, and Vern is in the driver’s seat, hands two and 10, he leans over and says, ‘Frank, we better hurry. The homeowners are going to be waiting for us. And Frank, with his cigarette, [says], ‘F**k the homeowners.’ True story.”