Design so dreadful you’ll be scarred for life

August 19, 2021 10:14 AM

By the end of episode two, your Changing Rooms bingo card will be full to overflowing. There are room dividers, MDF panelling and feature walls. There is “colour!” being used to create “zones!” There is pink used in a room whose owner hates pink. There is spray-painting, “customising” (making plain, acceptable things into ornate, crappy things), gold leaf, and sticking flooring to walls in the name of innovation. I could go on, but I care about you. The Guardian's Lucy Mangan reviews the latest season of Changing Rooms, a home decor show on Channel 4 in the UK.
posted by Bella Donna (31 comments total)

See, and while I wouldn't have been terribly interested before, now I want to watch that for the trainwreck factor.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:49 AM on August 19, 2021 [7 favorites]

Spot on! Brilliant!

So - I have a theory as to why these "shabby chic", zero-budget reno shows just don't work anymore... bear with me, but it is slightly techinical... It all has to do with HD television - back in the ancient, before-times - everything was low-resolution, low-definition.

Therefore, it made it far easier for one to squint - and perhaps with the aid of a little libation seem to "see" that the horrible atrocity created with random bits and bobs maybe could look good.

Now? Not so much - with everything "HD", this type of show has moved away from broadcast to a myriad of user-created YouTube channels (amongst other social media platforms mentioned by the author) - I have some exposure, because my partner is... uh, addicted to these types of shows.

OTOH - if you just view these types of shows as comedy and wait for the inevitable off-the-rails, train-wrecks that ensue - they provide endless hours of entertainment. My god, it's full of hair-walls...
posted by rozcakj at 10:49 AM on August 19, 2021 [8 favorites]

Agree with you about the HD thing, rozcakj. Even in the old days, a bunch of the design work done in Changing Rooms was obviously slapdash. Regarding the article, the story about the tea pots was so sad! Hope the owner got compensation but I bet not.
posted by Bella Donna at 11:00 AM on August 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

Unf*ck this house
posted by Aleyn at 11:02 AM on August 19, 2021 [14 favorites]

More TV reviews should end in all caps.
posted by q*ben at 11:14 AM on August 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

Even if you ignore how hideous many of these remakes look, I bet the slapdash way they're done mean they all fall apart after a few weeks anyway. Why anyone would subject their home to a wrecking ball like that baffles me, but I guess the sad fact is that some people will do anything to be on telly for half an hour.

Ever makeover show should face a rival channel inspecting their work in three months time and screening the tatty debris that remains. Unfortunately, there seems to be some sort of "dog does not bite dog" rule among TV production companies which stops this happening.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:20 AM on August 19, 2021 [9 favorites]

I imagine it's a combination of who owns the IP, and of the independent production companies who make these shows not wanting to alienate the next broadcaster they are pitching a series to.
posted by at by at 11:36 AM on August 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

I enjoyed the article but kinda wanted a slideshow. Maybe even some of those graphics with a slider you can move left and right for a before-and-after look.
posted by Caxton1476 at 11:39 AM on August 19, 2021 [9 favorites]

There was a U.S. version of the franchise called Trading Spaces. I don't know if "watch it for the train wreck!" was originally part of the concept but the producers seemed to have cottoned on to that aspect pretty quick if not. According to rumor the homeowners typically allowed all the nonsense because they'd turn right around and use the money from being on the show to fix up their room proper-like, with maybe keeping some stuff that was good.
posted by traveler_ at 11:50 AM on August 19, 2021 [2 favorites]

One of the comments at the Guardian managed a generous take:

I have some nostalgia for Changing Rooms, though not in a way that's been mentioned so far on this thread.

It celebrated doing whatever you bloody well liked with your own house.

This is something that has become smothered between the twin cushions of Generation Rent condemned to a life of wall-to-wall magnolia paint and off-the-shelf art c/o an absentee landlord, and the keep-everything-neutral-so-you-can-flog-it ethos of Phil & Kirsty.

Something concentrating on cheap and reversible decoration would still be useful, but everything gets eaten by real-estate speculation. Happened to the website Apartment Therapy, alas.
posted by clew at 12:02 PM on August 19, 2021 [19 favorites]

Here to defend the honor of MDF. In the right application (non-structural! not for unsupported shelves! not pretending to be another material!), quality MDF basically a perfect material-- smooth, workable, sustainable.

Ikea particle board is not MDF, somehow it's gotten all mixed up in people's heads.
posted by supercres at 12:02 PM on August 19, 2021 [8 favorites]

Ever makeover show should face a rival channel inspecting their work in three months time and screening the tatty debris that remains.

The original model for PBS's This Old House was that WGBH bought the house for them to renovate, then after renovations were complete the station sold the house. I think this lasted until they refurbished an old mansion and the station took a bath because there were no buyers. After that they started focusing on renovating other people's houses.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:19 PM on August 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

If you would like to see the moment mentioned in the first paragraph where Linda Barker destroys a teapot collection (and doesn't seem all that sorry, to be honest) it's here.
posted by JanetLand at 12:37 PM on August 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

The first series of these had very unsuspecting victims, and featured some of the best fish-faced gasping in horror I have ever seen on film/video. I think it was essential that the earnest couple doing a thoughful job for their neighbor would come home to find their lounge painted starkers red, and looking like an abattoir, and the cameras were set to catch their honest, horrified reactions.
Pretty entertaining, actually.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 12:50 PM on August 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

There was an American version of this, called Trading Spaces, that had similar outcomes. Bizarre, horrible, weird design choices that I think were the actual point of the show - doing something hideous to draw eyeballs. I remember one episode where the designer went all in on creating a "living wall" - literally covering a wall with some type of plant, still alive, but with no plan for keeping it alive into the future.

After a few episodes, I stopped watching - I didn't find it all that entertaining to watch misery being inflicted on others.
posted by nubs at 1:30 PM on August 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

At least here in the US, even the “legit” home reno shows seem to have gone all-in on wtf-are-they-thinking??? decor this season. My wife watches the shows and, whenever I happen to be in the room when the big reveal happens, all I can think is “I hope these people kept a pile of cash handy to undo this atrocity.”
posted by Thorzdad at 1:38 PM on August 19, 2021

We had some friends who were on an American version of this theme. They would laugh about the hardest part of the show was pretending to be thrilled about a room remodel that was such an obvious shitshow they couldn't believe it actually aired.
posted by kjs3 at 2:15 PM on August 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

I really needed a gallery of the worst offenders. Descriptions just weren't doing it for me! Bored Panda came to the rescue, with 25 examples.
posted by meese at 2:35 PM on August 19, 2021 [12 favorites]

HAIR WALL

I couldn't stop giggling every time the camera panned by the hair wall like it was a normal thing that exists.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:45 PM on August 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

Trading Spaces had a hay wall, and lots of other disasters - here's a listicle of six particularly memorable ones.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 3:07 PM on August 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

I remember a trading spaces episode where one homeowner had a foot phobia, got really freaked about toes, bare feet, etc.. There was some slight teasing about it early on, and then the designer doing that house decided that, 'obviously we have to make a giant painting of a bare foot be the focal point of this room'. That is when I quit watching the show, it went beyond poor taste and into deliberate cruelty.
posted by buildmyworld at 3:57 PM on August 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

I haven’t seen the original Changing Rooms but I definitely watched Trading Spaces for a while and.. it’s very disappointing, because it could actually be a great concept - see what we can do to revitalize this room with a thousand bucks and some hard work! Much more accessible than the Property Brothers $100k renovations. But while some of the rooms looked fine (through the tv at least), so many of them were awful. The all brown room! The room turned into a skating rink! No one wants that!

Anyway. The review is delightful.
posted by obfuscation at 4:31 PM on August 19, 2021

I can't believe I'm here to defend Trading Spaces but it's been a weird week so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Many, many of Hildi and Doug's designs were at best of questionable taste (the jailhouse room?) to downright unhealthy (the hay, the fake fabric flowers stapled to every square inch of a BATHROOM) or ruinous to an element they were explicitly told they could not touch (the painted fireplaces). Some of the designers did lovely, thoughtful work: Vern Yip, most of Laurie's rooms, and most of Genevieve. God help you if you got Hildi or Doug or, to a lesser extent Frank, who was also lovely but you hoped you loved arts and crafts day.
posted by ApathyGirl at 4:58 PM on August 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

I remember watching Changing Rooms on BBC America back when it was a channel that showed, you know, actually material from BBC. They also had a garden do-over show that was really charming. There was a whole lot of that era of BBC America, as a channel, that I loved.

Now it's mostly Star Trek reruns. Because somehow Patrick Stewart or something.
posted by hippybear at 6:43 PM on August 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

hippybear: “There was a whole lot of that era of BBC America, as a channel, that I loved.”

This made me think turn-of-the-century BBC America too. Ground Force was the name of the gardening show and I really loved it.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:36 PM on August 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

Avocado bathrooms
posted by flabdablet at 11:44 PM on August 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

People have mentioned the US Trading Spaces version - does anyone remember the further kids' spin-off of it, Trading Spaces: Boys vs. Girls? It was actually kind of charming - you had a couple of classmates re-decorating each others' bedrooms, usually one boy decorating a girl's room and vice-versa, assisted by a classmate or a younger sibling or something. It aired for a few years in the early aughts.

Since it was just in the kids' rooms it sort of fit to have whimsy, and the kids were pretty earnest about really paying attention to what each other would want. It was like the idealized version of Trading Spaces, where everyone was genuinely delighted with what they got. They also ended every episode with a sequence where each kid showed their newly-redecorated bedroom to their own parents and got their reactions too - and the parents always seemed genuinely blown-away and impressed. (One father's reaction to his kid's bedroom - an awestruck "you have GOT.....to be KIDDING....ME," has lived in my head for 10 years now.)

Found a sample episode here.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:24 AM on August 20, 2021 [4 favorites]

"Your Home In Their Hands" actually had someone honest enough to say what they thought but then they edited it to make the husband look like he's ignoring that the wife "likes" it. If it's any clue about the show they seem to lean into their cruelty by using clips from this as their promotions.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:24 AM on August 20, 2021

Thanks for the Hair Wall link, betweenthebars! It wasn't nearly as horrifying as I expected it to be. Just really ... dumb? Maybe if you enjoyed stroking fake hair it would be fun but wow, what an insufferable design.
posted by Bella Donna at 7:01 AM on August 20, 2021

then they edited it to make the husband look like he's ignoring that the wife "likes" it

That was horrible. It's so hard to tell if husband has crushed the wife's dreams (very possible) but the face wife is making is on the verge of crying while she's trying to say positive things about the makeover.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:38 AM on August 20, 2021 [2 favorites]

Honestly, the worst thing about the hair wall is that it's really more of a hair frame. If you're going to do a hair wall, go all out. Hair the whole goddamned wall.

So disappointed.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:39 AM on August 20, 2021 [2 favorites]