November 07, 2024
TV PREVIEW

‘Trading Spaces,’ 9 p.m. Saturday TLC

For the third time ever in its six seasons, the popular home-makeover show comes to Maine.

The difference this time is that “Portland: Doe Lane” features two semipublic figures, the morning anchor team of John Hopperstad and Vivian Bean, and their respective spouses, all of whom work at WGME (Channel 13), the CBS affiliate in Portland.

For those without cable or satellite TV, “Trading Spaces” features two couples who exchange homes, then renovate a room in the other couple’s house, with the assistance of a designer and a carpenter, over a three-day period. The couples and their re-design guides choose one of three possible rooms to make over. In two rooms, they would get $1,000 with which to work; in the third, called the “bonus room,” they receive $2,000.

Vivian and her husband, Matt, teamed up with designer Edward Walker and carpenter Faber Dewar to redo John and Carrie’s living room, while John and and his wife, Carrie, worked with designer Genevieve Gorder and carpenter Amy Wynn Pastor on Vivian and Matt’s bedroom.

The two squads enjoyed a couple of advantages while revamping rooms in these cozy homes. Each selected the bonus room, and those rooms were small, which means more money to work with in less area. The finished products were luxurious.

The two couples faced an additional challenge: their internal clocks. They were used to getting up in the early morning hours, and going to sleep in the early evening, which left them particularly punchy on the second day’s late night of homework.

Two Portland businesses were featured in the episode as well. A rug by designer Angela Adams was a key design element in the living room, while the bedroom was built around a trunk found at Portland Architectural Salvage.

“Portland: Doe Lane” was a fun example of the new “Trading Spaces,” itself revamped a couple of seasons ago when longtime host Paige Davis was let go. Having two of the homeowners comfortable on camera raised the energy level, as did the always exuberant Gorder.

Now, if we can only get “Trading Spaces” to come up to the other Maine.


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