There are two ways to apply to Trading Spaces. One is via the Trading Spaces web site and the other is via snail mail. Not to take any chances, we did both.

We spent about a month working on our application trying to make sure we conveyed everything we wanted to convey and made ourselves stand out. I took tons of pictures, both of the two rooms in question -- as is specified in the application process -- but also of our two families. We decided to sprinkle pictures throughout the text portion of the application in the style of one of my web photo essays. The main work took about a week, the other three weeks were spent tweaking to make sure everyone involved was happy with the end results. While spending so long tweaking doesn't argue well for us being able to handle the two day format, we figure if we are all still friends after that, I'm sure nothing Banyan Productions can do to us will make a dent.

With the application in the mail, all we could do was sit back and wait. And wait. It seems Trading Spaces was not coming to the Bay Area during Season Three.

In the meantime, I watched a lot more of the show and started to have some doubts about submitting myself to the process. Then, Season Three of Trading Spaces came along and the next thing we knew, it was Jump the Shark time and my doubts magnified. Finally, we moved into a bigger, nicer house, and were suddenly a lot less eager to let any old TS designer come in and do their thing, particularly as we're working with a design firm to come up with a master plan to remodel the place into our dream house.

In our old place, besides willing neighbors, we had nothing we cared to preserve in our potential TS rooms, and no real plan for how to solve our decorating and space problems. But with the new house, we know exactly what we want to do with it and we no longer have willing neighbors, assuming we'd even be willing any more ourselves. I still think it would be fun to participate in making a television show but not enough that I'm willing to put my Arizona Flagstone fireplace and hardwood floors at risk.

So if Trading Spaces calls for a location interview for Season Four, I'm thinking we'll be turning them down rather than trying to talk one of our new neighbors into participating.

The Application

Here is our application complete with pictures:

Team One's Application

Team Two's Application

Plus pictures of the rooms to be redone:

Marie & Dan's Room

Mike & Ken's Room