Trading Spaces

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So, it looks like this is finally going to happen.
I wish I could say that I had thought up some Awesome Master Plan to eff up the filming, but, meh. I just stopped being angry with Nasty McNeighbor. I figured I can’t stop her from disliking us because we’re RENTERS! I can, however, control my behavior and hating her just because she wasn’t friendly to me was a waste of energy. I don’t want to be at odds with my neighbors. I want to wave and say hello and offer to water their yard while they go out of town and all of those nice things that neighbors do for each other.
I know the chances of THAT kind of neighborly love between her and I are slim to none, but I figure I can at least wave good morning to her, even if she doesn’t wave back. That’s not to say I won’t still flip her off as she drives away from time to time, because WOULD IT KILL YOU TO WAVE BACK, LADY?
We’ve had a few conversations about the filming– I’ve gone out of my way to ask her about it and she was actually excited to talk about it, so that was nice.
Anyway.
I’m kind of excited about the possibility of meeting Paige Davis and OMG I HOPE DOUG IS HER DESIGNER BECAUSE I EFFING LOVE DOUG.
I plan on taking lots of pictures and you KNOW I’ll be writing about anything exciting that happens. Which, let’s hope that if anything exciting happens it involves me, Doug and a plate of chocolate covered strawberries.

51 thoughts on “Trading Spaces”

  2. Adie

    Be sure to let us know when the episode is due to air so that we can flip her off when she comes on the screen. Because I am so not above that.

  3. DiaryofWhy

    For some reason when I first read that I thought you were talking about that show where they build really deserving families really awesome new McDream homes, and I was like, what?! This lady does not deserve a brand new awesome McDream home! I can’t believe Y is being so chill about this! And then I re-read it and realized she just gets a room.
    Pfffft. Let her have her room.

  4. kelley

    Cool T.V shows never come to my neighborhood! And I hope it is Doug too, “Moving Up” is one of my favorite shows!
    Also, what is a “Filmling”? All I could picture when I first read that was some sort of alien……

  6. Y

    Doug’s gay? Well, that only makes me love him (and want to make him a platter of chocolate covered strawberries) even more. 😉

  7. Louise

    I’m kind of ashamed to admit that I didn’t even know Trading Spaces was still on the air. I used to really love Vern’s stuff though.
    (I hope your neighbour gets Hildi, and Hildi glues hay to the walls and paints over it with black paint like she did that time, and that your neighbour cries during “filmling”, and… and… yeah).

  8. A'Dell

    Which room are you going to do? Did you get to pick or do the producers manhandle that decision?
    I would totally make them do my bedroom – if they F it up it’s easy to just shut the door until you can manage to fix it. (such as, hay or moss on the wall.) And if they do it great then TA DA! New and awesome bedroom all for you!
    Exciting, exciting! I can’t wait to hear how it goes down.

  9. diz

    Doug is awesome. I met him at Ikea when his book came out. He signed them and gave them out for free.
    I met Paige when she was in Chicago on Broadway.
    So in other words, tell them I said hi, because you know they will totally remember me 😉

  10. Marmite Breath

    Are you sure you don’t want to be disruptive? Because I would totally offer to help you. I hate snobby neighbours. And I bet we could come up with some ridonkulous (yeah, I said it) plan that would have us peeing our pants laughing the whole time. Let me know, I’ll hop a flight to Cali.
    We are new renters too, which, according to the property management company and some people around here, means that we must be covered in scales and plan to run a meth lab out of our house. Uh, hello! Prejudge much?
    Must go, off to polish my scales (that is not a euphemism) and cook up some drugs.
    (In reality I am going to eat a bowl of Weetabix and then shower so I can go up to the school and help the First graders with their reading skillz……HALP!)
    I love you, Y!

  11. bellevelma

    Heh. Meet MY next door neighbor. The woman who doesn’t say anything to ME, yet finds it perfectly acceptable to put her fundraising materials in my mailbox once a year, in the hopes I’ll contribute to her cause. The same woman who, once when I was outside talking to a group of other neighbors, walked up to us and said to one of the other women, as she pointed at me, What Did She Say? Meaning me. What did I say? And as if I was suddenly not there, the other woman said, “Oh, we were just talking about school starting and she said….”

  14. Olivia

    How cool. I’m too controlling about my house to go for it, but I love watching the show. Is your landlord okay with this? Cause if Hildi gets a hold of your house look out!

  15. y

    They’re not doing our house. They’re doing the neighbors house. I WISH they were doing this house.
    Also? Even though I want Doug to be there for my own selfish reasons, I really do secretly hope she gets Hidli and that Hildi hangs something crazy on her walls. Like dead lizards.

  17. Jayne

    I would like to wager that the “film crew” is a bunch of old biddies “film-ling” your dahling neighbor on their cell phones…. Only one way to find out, get drunk, sit on your front porch and scream obsenitites. And wave, oh yeah, lots of waving.

  19. Headless Mom

    I was just wondering if it was/did happen. I even drove through that area the other day and was like “I wonder which house is Y’s and the yucky neighbor?” Anyway, can’t wait for the tales!

  20. dana michelle

    The first think I noticed about that letter was “filmling”. It’s the grammar freak in me.
    Also noticed the last two words are “from at:” Methinks they need a better typist with a better command of the language!
    Hope they do something so heinous to your neighbor’s house that she puts up a For Sale sign the next day 😉

  22. Lurker Girl

    Hi “Y”,
    They just got done filming Extreme Home Makeover in Toledo this weekend. IT was a MADHOUSE–thye had to bring in sepctators by shuttle and the whole street was a total disaster area. But the house for the Frisch family is BEAUTIFUL and they deserve it. It will air in Nov–he is a Toledo Firefighter and they have 11 children (8 are adopted).
    Good luck when the crews come to your hood. I cannot imagine living for a week in the mess that Extreme Home make-over made–but your thing will be a smaller scale I would think–it’s still VERY exciting though!!!

  23. norm

    t’would be awesome to have some sort of derelict vehicle up on blocks in front of the house temporarily as kind of a rusted metal middle finger to the hellneighbors. Only while they’re filmling.

  24. SarahDragon

    LOL!! I’ll bet that Nasty McNeighbor has felt like a donkey’s ass for the last several months, after telling PigHunter they would be there in 2 weeks : ) I also hope they get something heinous done to their house… maybe they’ll move out and RENT IT to SOMEONE NICEer than they are : )

  26. Michelle

    We could all just e-mail the show after the airing and be like, “Wow, that was the bitchiest woman ever on the show. I don’t like her. Kill her.”

  27. Amber

    I am de-lurking simply to share a random story about Doug. I was in New Orleans to celebrate New Years Eve (2002) and it was the height of the Trading Spaces craze. My boyfriend at the time and I were out at a random bar on Bourbon street, when we spied Doug across the way. We both LOVED the show, so we ran over to him and introduced ourselves. He was dressed in classic Doug fashion–black tshirt and black leather pants. As soon as we said we were fans of the show, he pulled out these huge Trading Spaces headshot cards and signed his autograph…without us even asking. Then he proceeded to hit on my (straight) boyfriend the entire night. But, he did give us his cell phone number and he met us out for dinner in Indianapolis a few months later when they were doing a show there (we lived in Bloomington, IN at the time) and would just randomly call my boyfriend while he was out and about. So if you do meet up with Doug, you’re likely to have a friend for a long time!

  28. Deb on the Rocks

    Oh, please don’t take the high road. I hate it when people do that! At least, right now go get some supplies just in case you decide you want to low blow it. Ugly paint swatches to sneak over and show her what they are doing to her house, purple-dye gum to offer her during the day of shooting, stuff like that. Life is too short to regret not seizing the day!

  29. Y

    Oh my God, Deb. I just love you, man.
    She didn’t wave to me this morning, so I’m really tempted to drop the whole “taking the high road” bullshit. Especially since you brought up “purple-dye gum” hahahhahahhahhaa

  30. Y

    just saw a van roll up to her house. Am going out to pretend like I’m watering the grass now.
    In my pj’s.
    Because when you work full time from home, you don’t get dressed during the day, right?

  33. Lisa

    So, do you really love Doug or just love that he really messes up people’s rooms with sometimes crazy stuff? 🙂 Hi, my name is Doug and I don’t care what you want, because I’m a designer.
    I like watching Doug, but TOTALLY would NOT want Doug designing my room.
    Have fun. Be sure to get a Paige Davis picture for the blog.

  34. Lisa

    So, do you really love Doug or just love that he really messes up people’s rooms with sometimes crazy stuff? 🙂 Hi, my name is Doug and I don’t care what you want, because I’m a designer.
    I like watching Doug, but TOTALLY would NOT want Doug designing my room.
    Have fun. Be sure to get a Paige Davis picture for the blog.

  35. Kay

    That is really cool! But I heard that they do such a fast job and use cheap materials on some of their “ideas” they usually leave the home owners repairing/throwing it away months later! Then you can say HA!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂

  38. Fiona

    It must be awful having illiterate neighbours *L*. How on earth did they get chosen? Is their decor THAT BAD? *L*
    Pfffft to rude…..what IS their problem? That woman doesn’t know the friend she’s missing in you, but hell, she doesn’t deserve you Y 🙂
    I say you go and make friends with whoever turns up, that’ll piss her off the most 😉

  40. JesseeezMom

    Y…sorry to have a different opinion than the others but I vote the high road. I have the opposite situation. We bought our house about 17 years ago, our neighbors we had were mostly retired or young familes at the time. As they all sold and moved on, we stayed, we were very close to all of our 70+ neighbors. When they sold for 5x’s the amount what we paid the new neighbors were not firiendly at all. I would wave only to get the head turn. It’s been about 3 years, but in the last few months I have finally gotten a wave AND A SMILE from them FIRST!! I can tell you the way our neighborhood used to be was the best, everyone knew each other and when you went away they had your back. Now there are only a few neighbors that I know, will keep their eye on our property. (thank goodness for them) I have high hopes to get to know other neighbors. You never know when your kids are home and might need someone/or something-i.e. they lost their housekey and needs to use a phone for you to come home and let them in. It happened to my daughter when she was 16- Thank Goodness for the nice neighbors!!

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