Back in 2003, I became addicted to the show Trading Spaces. As part of my addiction, I even applied to be on the show!
The premise is that two sets of neighbors trade houses for two days. They work with a designer on a room in their neighbor's house and give it a makeover. In addition to only getting two days, there is also a budget of only $1000. Although on the surface, it sounds like a design show, in reality it plays out like a cross between This Old House and Beat the Clock. Will the room get done in time and under budget? Will the neighbors doing the work fight with the designer assigned to them? And will each couple like the room the neighbor has done for them or will they threaten in the media to sue the show because their house was destroyed?
Most people who watch the show fall into two camps. Either "I'll never let them do that to my house" camp or the "Let's sign up; it'll be a hoot" camp. Obviously, we were in later group and it's a very big one with the over several hundred applications a day being sent in to the show. That means getting on the show is sort of like winning the lottery only without an guarantee as to what you'll win.
But we were game so we filled out the application and sat back to wait.
In the meantime, I found the web site Television Without Pity (a.k.a. TWoP) and their Trading Spaces forum where I became a regular. Now, I'm addicted to TWoP. I no longer watch TS or post in their TS forum, but I do visit several other forums and read the recaps of the various shows they cover whether I watch them or not. Before I gave up on the show, I helped the TS forum make some Forum Banner Ads to help TWoP out when they were in a financial bind. Finally, I went mad one night and created a parody to honor one of my favorite TS designers and the TWoP TS recappers, What Would Vern Yip Do?