No neighborhood is safe. At any moment some interior designer may bust into your humble abode and kick you out to the curb. Be afraid. Be very afraid ... She's brought paint chips.
Yes, it seems the homes of America have now become the targets of make-over mavens in a string of new television shows. Before it was just the guests of the Jenny Jones show or a junior high sleepover who were on the receiving end of make-overs, but now the places where you eat and sleep are getting the treatment too.
These make-over/reality/home decorating shows are invariably hosted by some energetic twentysomething who bounces around decopauging trash cans. The homeowners and carpenters feign being buddies and having a good time despite all the "work" that's going on. There is really very little difference between these home make-over shows besides the basic gimmick.
There's "Trading Spaces" the popular TLC show where two homeowners trade homes and, with the aid of a designer, remake one of their rooms. The best thing about this show is watching the couples return to their gaudy living rooms which were once done in conservative neutrals. The looks on their dowdy, middle-aged faces are priceless once they see their suburban country clutter room has been vamped out like a Real World house on MTV. If it's a good episode, they'll even cry.
But only one room of their house is made over, so the rest of their home remains frumpy. That would totally ruin the continuity of your house, right? How uncool of them to only foot the bill for one room? And they don't even use all new stuff. They'll hack apart your existing furniture to remain under budget and you'll have no say in it.
"While You Were Out" is another home make-over show with a twist. In this one, conspiratorial wives send their husbands packing for a couple days only to revamp a part of the house.
In one episode I saw, a woman who forced her cityboy husband to move to the suburbs wants to make it up to him by redesigning the backyard in a hip urban flavor. The designer comes up with a design to do a Moroccan-style patio.
Intersperced are little quizes to judge how well the couple knows each other, the game show aspect of the program. If the wife gets them right, she gets more crap for her decor, if she loses, she gets crapier crap. (Think authentic brass Moroccan tea set vs. little girl's plastic tea set.)
When hubby got home, he was very visibly displeased with his new patio. The wife got all apolegetic and started crying. It made for some really awkward television, but that's how reality TV is. The episode was just proof of what a bad idea it is to change someone's living environment without them knowing it.
My favorite show is perhaps VH1's "Rock the House," which is basically the same as the rest, except there is a gratuitous celebrity thrown into the equation. There's really no reason for a rock star to be there, they don't know anything about design and they can't paint for shit. They're just there to autograph memorabilia to hang in the fan's new room.
So next time your neighbor's dog is howling at 2 a.m., just think of the lovely day when "Trading Spaces" will roll onto your street and you'll get your sweet revenge by coating their walls in orange and painting their coffee table in zebra stripes.