Friday, Jan. 17, 2003 | 9:17 a.m.
What: "Trading Spaces."
When: 9 p.m. Saturday.
Where: The Learning Channel (Cox cable channel 38).
It's not often an educational TV show is fun or exciting for that matter.
It's even rarer that an educational program is a ratings hit.
"Trading Spaces" is all of the above, and more.
Airing daily on The Learning Channel (Cox cable channel 38), the hourlong show is the top-rated prime-time series nationwide on basic cable, with nearly 4 million people tuning in for first-run episodes Saturday nights.
The premise is simple: Two neighbors each work with a professional designer to redecorate a room in the other's home in 48 hours.
The catch is that, although the show provides a carpenter, both designers are on a strict budget of $1,000. Also, each neighbor has little say in the transformation of his own home and is not allowed to see the other's work in progress.
The payoff of course, is at the end of the program, when each group finally views their new room, what the show refers to as "the reveal." This is usually accompanied by audible gasps of delight by the homeowners, but on occasion has been met with stunned silence or even despair.
Las Vegan Jeff Basham is a big fan of "Trading Spaces." In fact, both he and his wife, Kim, have watched the home-improvement program from the beginning, two seasons ago.
So when the couple learned how to apply for the show, they and their neighbors from across the street went online and registered to be participants.
Six months later and the Bashams learned that the couples had been selected for "Trading Spaces" first visit to Las Vegas. The episode, which was filmed Thursday and today, will air beginning at 9 p.m. Saturday, culminating in a live reveal the show's first. (The live portion will be tape-delayed in Las Vegas.)
For the Bashams, the selection was the perfect opportunity to have a room in their home spruced up, having only lived in their house for a matter of months.
Then they saw a "Trading Spaces" ad in People magazine touting the Las Vegas episode, and learned the two designers selected for the show were Doug Wilson and Hilda Santo-Tomas -- otherwise known as the "gruesome twosome."
Fans of "Trading Spaces" are aware that, among the show's eight designers, it's almost always Wilson and Santo-Tomas with the most unique visions. Of course, whether those visions match those of what the homeowners had in mind is sometimes a different matter.
Even "Trading Spaces" host Paige Davis acknowledged that both Wilson and Santo-Thomas are the show's most "controversial" designers.
A sceptic would allow that Wilson and Santo-Thomas are the perfect duo for a live reveal, since their designs are more apt to generate an emotional reaction. However, Davis assured that the choice in the creative pairing was merely a coincidence.
"There's very little mischievousness going on in deciding the designers," she said from her cell phone shortly after arriving in Las Vegas. "They all have businesses outside of 'Trading Spaces,' so they pick times that work best for them -- long before we know what shows we'll be in. People just think it's very Machiavellian."
Coincidence or not, Basham and his wife were a little apprehensive about the designers they would be working with.
"As soon as I saw the People magazine ad, I called the show and said, 'Oh my gosh, is this true?' " he said. "We were definitely worked up about it."
Wilson, however, isn't really sure what all the fuss is about.
"There are a lot of people out there who don't get that it's television," Wilson said in a recent phone interview from Scottsdale, Ariz. "It's entertainment; don't take it so seriously.
"I'm doing my job. I'm the 'bad boy' of the show. I'm the Alexis Carrington of 'Trading Spaces.' "
Of course, one would have to search thoroughly in the "Dynasty" vaults to find Joan Collins' bitchy TV character causing a woman to cry because of a fireplace decoration.
But in one of "Trading Spaces' " more memorable moments, a woman was reduced to sobs after Wilson tampered with her fireplace, even though she told neighbors the fireplace was off-limits.
"She said don't paint the fireplace. I didn't paint it. I put a wood facade over the fireplace that could be taken down in five minutes," Wilson said. "I honored her request. I knew I did a good job and I gave her something that was tenfold better than what she had in terms of style and living.
"When you sign up for this show, you've got to give up control. What's frustrating is the homewowners who want to come and be a part of this game, saying, 'You can't touch this, you can't touch that.' They want to stipulate what you can and can't touch and that's not what the show's about."
While Basham said his family room is fair game for Santo-Tomas, who will supervise the room makeover, he said his neighbors, whose bedroom is being transformed by Wilson, had one request: the carpet be left untouched.
And Basham said he intends to honor their wishes, even if that means plopping down in the middle of the bedroom floor to keep Wilson from ripping up the floor covering.
"They are adamant about not letting that carpet come out. I'll be very, very pushy towards him" to keep the floor covering as-is, Basham said. "I have to live next to these people for the next 20 or 30 years. I don't want to have a falling out with them, because we're all friends.
"And, hopefully, we'll all be friends after the show."
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