Written by Amy B.

From going barefoot to holding cabinet doors for Amy Wynn, below is Amy’s account of working in Genevieve’s house for Trading Spaces.

Cast of Characters (in order of appearance)
Amy – that’s me! Corinne and I worked together
Corinne – homeowner; I worked with her in Jessica’s house
Kara – hair stylist, Corinne’s friend
Jess – other homeowner
Amy Wynn – Trading Spaces carpenter (many of my guy friends’ favorite!)
Paige Davis – perky host of Trading Spaces
Genevieve – designer extraordinaire; fellow Minneapolis girl
Randall – Paige’s make-up artist for our episode; owner of almost all MAC products
Kevin – our episode producer; it was his first one
Neal – Trading Spaces location assistant, responsible for catering, etc.
Erin – fellow helper girl and sparkly-dance-boy girl
Tom – Trading Spaces Executive Producer
Doug – designer in Corinne’s house

Wednesday, June 11th, 2003
I was up by 6:15 am and had to be to Corinne’s house by 7 so her friend, Kara, could do our hair. That was a blessing since it was one less thing I needed to worry about before shooting began. Looking fabulous, Corinne and I drove over to Jess’s house around 7:45 am since I had too much to carry (I always over pack)! The crew started arriving right around 8 am, setting us up with mics, lights, paint trays, brushes…you name it! Amy Wynn was the first celeb I saw that morning, Paige followed, then Genevieve arrived. All three got their makeup done in Jess’s room and I coveted the MAC set-up Randall, the make-up artist, had with him. I told him he was my new idol. I don’t think he was impressed.

We finally started rolling tape around 10 am-I think we got a later start than the other house. Did our fun intro with Gen, unloaded the living room, checked out the paint colors, then we all got workin’. The first coat of paint went up super fast and we were off to do other projects. We visited Daniel down in sewing world, took some shots outside, but the most fun thing of all? Jamming around the living room with Gen to the music playing on her iPod. That girl has some great music and I snuck over several times to see what was playing. She loves her some Prince, so there was much Purple love and then! Justin Timberlake! Corinne and I about died. Gen mentioned she’s a closet fan and we said, “No need to be closet around us. We’re out and proud with our sparkly love.” Much giggling ensued and she said she knew when she watched our interview on tape we’d all get along great-Corinne and I are also big gigglers. Gen’s mom, Diana, came over and visited and helped for a bit, and I think we finally ate lunch around 4 pm since we ended up ordering food from a local deli-the catering people sucked!

There were many times when Corinne, Gen and I would all say the same thing-then one of us would yell, “We’re in sync!” and even MORE giggling happened. Thank God our crew of guys was cool and mostly just laughed along with us after rolling their eyes. I believe we were nicknamed the “spazzy girl house”, which I think was very fitting! We talked to Gen about being her worker bees. She said we could be her worker bees anytime. Sounds fabulous-when do I start?

During one shot in particular, Corinne and I were outside on the front lawn with Paige. There was a girl who had been hanging around ALL DAY, chatting up Amy Wynn, Paige, or anybody who happened to be outside that was affiliated with the show. She really, really wanted us to order pizza from Domino’s since her mom worked there. She creeped Corinne and me out and we started calling her scary girl.

Everybody left around 9 pm to leave Corinne and me to our homework, but guess who was still around? Scary girl. We talked with our producer, Kevin, to see if we could ask her to leave after everyone else had already gone. He very conveniently asked us if we wanted the garage door shut so we could work and we enthusiastically yelled, “Yes please!!!” Neal, the location assistant, called to see if we wanted pizza-hell yes we wanted some pizza, but not from Domino’s! We ordered a half pepperoni and pineapple and a half sausage, but amazingly enough, Erin and Jess got into our pizza and ate most of Corinne’s side before Neal brought ours over. Oops. At least they were kinda nice and left her one piece so she was all right, but clearly not thrilled.

Homework consisted of painting, priming, painting, staining, and more painting. We painted tons of stuff, including an entertainment center, several windows, radiators, and a ceiling. Painting a ceiling at 1:30 am is not my idea of a good time, especially when the only light in the small room is a spot and it’s 800 degrees in there. Running out of white paint 3/4 of the way through also sucked. We trudged up the stairs around 2, and when I was walking back through Jess’s room to head to the bathroom, I noticed a big black smudge on the carpet. Corinne promptly took off her smock off and started trying to rub it out-which only made it worse since she had wet black paint on her smock and was rubbing that into the carpet as well. Randall, makeup man extraordinaire, mentioned that Soft Scrub can get out just about anything. We contemplated a home remedy for the carpet and decided against it…however, we did run some water into the tub to scrub our nasty ass feet. We did everything barefoot Day 1, and our poor feet were covered in paint. I stepped on several paint lids, including a black one. Hopefully Jess appreciates the fact that we scrubbed before climbing into her light-colored bedding.

I set my cell phone’s alarm (all day long there was no power upstairs since we kept blowing fuses-old-fashioned fuse box with twist-in fuses in Jess’s basement…yikes!), made sure it’d play “Bye Bye Bye” to wake us up, and then off to sleep we went.

Thursday, June 12th, 2003

Cue BBB at 7 am and then see Corinne and Amy not wanting to get out of bed. It was painful to get up that early and even more painful to try walking down the stairs. I felt like an old, old woman and Corinne and I repeatedly asked each other how older homeowners do this if we felt like crap and we’re fairly young. Got to feel a little bit better after a shower, clean hair, and fresh makeup. The guys mentioned I smelled good when I got into the kitchen, and I let them know it’d probably be the last time that day I smelled even close to nice.

Taping started earlier that day but things felt more stressful. We found out early Thursday morning the goal was to have the room loaded back up and finished by 2:30. Um, sure. Let’s go.

Corinne and I spent the morning stuffing pillows and attempting to move a big ass desk upstairs from Jess’s basement. We failed at that mission. We also failed at being good sewers while trying to close the pillows. Man, did I ever suck at that! We tried to be all fancy with the stitching and found out Gen just wanted them closed-that was more doable than the “sew on the inside of where you pinned, loop back through the stitch you just made and keep going” option.

I will say the crew does an amazing job of keeping you moving all day long so you run on adrenaline and don’t have time to feel tired. I know I looked like I was ready to drop a few times. Everybody looked pretty tired Day 2, and I’m glad we had lots of stuff to do.

I worked some with Amy Wynn on Day 2 on the entertainment center, and I was the world’s best door holder. I also discovered I’m not very good with a power screwdriver since I couldn’t get good leverage while sitting cross-legged on the floor trying to screw in some hinges. So, I was the door holder. Works for me.

We finished up our projects, filmed some more overhead camera stuff, loaded the room in and had things pretty much ready to go around 5 or so. Did our hurry-ups, our final little dance in the room, and we were done.

Corinne and I headed into the back yard, grabbed our parents, and showed them the finished product. My Mom got a little star-struck, I think, which was so cute.

We all grabbed some dinner (still sucky) and Daniel made us drinks. We named them Daniel-tinis since it was a combination of vodka, Mountain Dew, and grape juice. Hey, we had to make due since we didn’t have any Triple Sec or cranberry juice and all the poor man wanted over the course of the 2 days was a really good Cosmo.

Paige let us in on a little secret-our reveal would be first. My pulse immediately went from resting to aerobic and Tom, the Executive Producer, laughed at me since he said he could see my pulse throbbing in my neck. Paige asked us only a couple of things-to please keep our eyes closed until she said “open your eyes,” and to truly give our honest reactions once we saw the room. I told her that if we were quiet for the first few seconds it was just to take everything in since we’d been gone from the room for a couple of days. Corinne had even been referring to her house as “the other house!”

It finally was time. We walked over to Corinne’s house and ended up waiting for another few minutes while the shot was set up and Erin and Jess were moved out of the house. Lots of people crowded into Corinne’s dining room to watch the reveal, including Gen and Doug. Gary got the call to bring us in and off we went. Heads down, we walked down to her steps and up into the house. Once we got onto the screen porch, we closed our eyes, Paige took our hands, and she led us into the room. (Now you’ll have to watch the show to see what happened!)

The cast, crew, and HOs (Home Owners) went out afterward to have a few drinks and we ended up closing down the bar. Damn Minnesota for having bar time at 1 am, since I think we would’ve partied all night if given the opportunity.

We had an amazing crew of people working with us-at all times there was a sound guy, camera guy, producer, production assistant, and grip following us around to set up shots. These people work their asses off and without them lots of stuff wouldn’t have gotten done. After saying thank you, swapping email addresses and cell phone numbers, then kisses and hugs good-bye, we all went our separate ways. People kept thanking us for being on the show and I kept replying, “There’s no way I would’ve missed this opportunity. Thank YOU for picking us to be on the show!” I’d do it again in a heartbeat-faster, if possible. I miss everyone already.

Read Erin’s diary about the audition process, and about taping her episode.

2003-07-10

Trading Spaces: The Other House

Written by Amy B.

From going barefoot to holding cabinet doors for Amy Wynn, below is Amy’s account of working in Genevieve’s house for Trading Spaces.

Cast of Characters (in order of appearance)
Amy – that’s me! Corinne and I worked together
Corinne – homeowner; I worked with her in Jessica’s house
Kara – hair stylist, Corinne’s friend
Jess – other homeowner
Amy Wynn – Trading Spaces carpenter (many of my guy friends’ favorite!)
Paige Davis – perky host of Trading Spaces
Genevieve – designer extraordinaire; fellow Minneapolis girl
Randall – Paige’s make-up artist for our episode; owner of almost all MAC products
Kevin – our episode producer; it was his first one
Neal – Trading Spaces location assistant, responsible for catering, etc.
Erin – fellow helper girl and sparkly-dance-boy girl
Tom – Trading Spaces Executive Producer
Doug – designer in Corinne’s house

Wednesday, June 11th, 2003
I was up by 6:15 am and had to be to Corinne’s house by 7 so her friend, Kara, could do our hair. That was a blessing since it was one less thing I needed to worry about before shooting began. Looking fabulous, Corinne and I drove over to Jess’s house around 7:45 am since I had too much to carry (I always over pack)! The crew started arriving right around 8 am, setting us up with mics, lights, paint trays, brushes…you name it! Amy Wynn was the first celeb I saw that morning, Paige followed, then Genevieve arrived. All three got their makeup done in Jess’s room and I coveted the MAC set-up Randall, the make-up artist, had with him. I told him he was my new idol. I don’t think he was impressed.

We finally started rolling tape around 10 am-I think we got a later start than the other house. Did our fun intro with Gen, unloaded the living room, checked out the paint colors, then we all got workin’. The first coat of paint went up super fast and we were off to do other projects. We visited Daniel down in sewing world, took some shots outside, but the most fun thing of all? Jamming around the living room with Gen to the music playing on her iPod. That girl has some great music and I snuck over several times to see what was playing. She loves her some Prince, so there was much Purple love and then! Justin Timberlake! Corinne and I about died. Gen mentioned she’s a closet fan and we said, “No need to be closet around us. We’re out and proud with our sparkly love.” Much giggling ensued and she said she knew when she watched our interview on tape we’d all get along great-Corinne and I are also big gigglers. Gen’s mom, Diana, came over and visited and helped for a bit, and I think we finally ate lunch around 4 pm since we ended up ordering food from a local deli-the catering people sucked!

There were many times when Corinne, Gen and I would all say the same thing-then one of us would yell, “We’re in sync!” and even MORE giggling happened. Thank God our crew of guys was cool and mostly just laughed along with us after rolling their eyes. I believe we were nicknamed the “spazzy girl house”, which I think was very fitting! We talked to Gen about being her worker bees. She said we could be her worker bees anytime. Sounds fabulous-when do I start?

During one shot in particular, Corinne and I were outside on the front lawn with Paige. There was a girl who had been hanging around ALL DAY, chatting up Amy Wynn, Paige, or anybody who happened to be outside that was affiliated with the show. She really, really wanted us to order pizza from Domino’s since her mom worked there. She creeped Corinne and me out and we started calling her scary girl.

Everybody left around 9 pm to leave Corinne and me to our homework, but guess who was still around? Scary girl. We talked with our producer, Kevin, to see if we could ask her to leave after everyone else had already gone. He very conveniently asked us if we wanted the garage door shut so we could work and we enthusiastically yelled, “Yes please!!!” Neal, the location assistant, called to see if we wanted pizza-hell yes we wanted some pizza, but not from Domino’s! We ordered a half pepperoni and pineapple and a half sausage, but amazingly enough, Erin and Jess got into our pizza and ate most of Corinne’s side before Neal brought ours over. Oops. At least they were kinda nice and left her one piece so she was all right, but clearly not thrilled.

Homework consisted of painting, priming, painting, staining, and more painting. We painted tons of stuff, including an entertainment center, several windows, radiators, and a ceiling. Painting a ceiling at 1:30 am is not my idea of a good time, especially when the only light in the small room is a spot and it’s 800 degrees in there. Running out of white paint 3/4 of the way through also sucked. We trudged up the stairs around 2, and when I was walking back through Jess’s room to head to the bathroom, I noticed a big black smudge on the carpet. Corinne promptly took off her smock off and started trying to rub it out-which only made it worse since she had wet black paint on her smock and was rubbing that into the carpet as well. Randall, makeup man extraordinaire, mentioned that Soft Scrub can get out just about anything. We contemplated a home remedy for the carpet and decided against it…however, we did run some water into the tub to scrub our nasty ass feet. We did everything barefoot Day 1, and our poor feet were covered in paint. I stepped on several paint lids, including a black one. Hopefully Jess appreciates the fact that we scrubbed before climbing into her light-colored bedding.

I set my cell phone’s alarm (all day long there was no power upstairs since we kept blowing fuses-old-fashioned fuse box with twist-in fuses in Jess’s basement…yikes!), made sure it’d play “Bye Bye Bye” to wake us up, and then off to sleep we went.

Thursday, June 12th, 2003

Cue BBB at 7 am and then see Corinne and Amy not wanting to get out of bed. It was painful to get up that early and even more painful to try walking down the stairs. I felt like an old, old woman and Corinne and I repeatedly asked each other how older homeowners do this if we felt like crap and we’re fairly young. Got to feel a little bit better after a shower, clean hair, and fresh makeup. The guys mentioned I smelled good when I got into the kitchen, and I let them know it’d probably be the last time that day I smelled even close to nice.

Taping started earlier that day but things felt more stressful. We found out early Thursday morning the goal was to have the room loaded back up and finished by 2:30. Um, sure. Let’s go.

Corinne and I spent the morning stuffing pillows and attempting to move a big ass desk upstairs from Jess’s basement. We failed at that mission. We also failed at being good sewers while trying to close the pillows. Man, did I ever suck at that! We tried to be all fancy with the stitching and found out Gen just wanted them closed-that was more doable than the “sew on the inside of where you pinned, loop back through the stitch you just made and keep going” option.

I will say the crew does an amazing job of keeping you moving all day long so you run on adrenaline and don’t have time to feel tired. I know I looked like I was ready to drop a few times. Everybody looked pretty tired Day 2, and I’m glad we had lots of stuff to do.

I worked some with Amy Wynn on Day 2 on the entertainment center, and I was the world’s best door holder. I also discovered I’m not very good with a power screwdriver since I couldn’t get good leverage while sitting cross-legged on the floor trying to screw in some hinges. So, I was the door holder. Works for me.

We finished up our projects, filmed some more overhead camera stuff, loaded the room in and had things pretty much ready to go around 5 or so. Did our hurry-ups, our final little dance in the room, and we were done.

Corinne and I headed into the back yard, grabbed our parents, and showed them the finished product. My Mom got a little star-struck, I think, which was so cute.

We all grabbed some dinner (still sucky) and Daniel made us drinks. We named them Daniel-tinis since it was a combination of vodka, Mountain Dew, and grape juice. Hey, we had to make due since we didn’t have any Triple Sec or cranberry juice and all the poor man wanted over the course of the 2 days was a really good Cosmo.

Paige let us in on a little secret-our reveal would be first. My pulse immediately went from resting to aerobic and Tom, the Executive Producer, laughed at me since he said he could see my pulse throbbing in my neck. Paige asked us only a couple of things-to please keep our eyes closed until she said “open your eyes,” and to truly give our honest reactions once we saw the room. I told her that if we were quiet for the first few seconds it was just to take everything in since we’d been gone from the room for a couple of days. Corinne had even been referring to her house as “the other house!”

It finally was time. We walked over to Corinne’s house and ended up waiting for another few minutes while the shot was set up and Erin and Jess were moved out of the house. Lots of people crowded into Corinne’s dining room to watch the reveal, including Gen and Doug. Gary got the call to bring us in and off we went. Heads down, we walked down to her steps and up into the house. Once we got onto the screen porch, we closed our eyes, Paige took our hands, and she led us into the room. (Now you’ll have to watch the show to see what happened!)

The cast, crew, and HOs (Home Owners) went out afterward to have a few drinks and we ended up closing down the bar. Damn Minnesota for having bar time at 1 am, since I think we would’ve partied all night if given the opportunity.

We had an amazing crew of people working with us-at all times there was a sound guy, camera guy, producer, production assistant, and grip following us around to set up shots. These people work their asses off and without them lots of stuff wouldn’t have gotten done. After saying thank you, swapping email addresses and cell phone numbers, then kisses and hugs good-bye, we all went our separate ways. People kept thanking us for being on the show and I kept replying, “There’s no way I would’ve missed this opportunity. Thank YOU for picking us to be on the show!” I’d do it again in a heartbeat-faster, if possible. I miss everyone already.

2003-07-10