"You want me to get this done?" Doug asked Aimee, with the camera hovering over him as he wired a lamp. "Move the camera, move the lights." For the first time, Doug was visibly pissed off. "You're yelling at me; you're getting edgy already." Up until this moment, Doug and his producer had interacted like teasing brothers and sisters. Now they seemed like a couple who'd been together for so long they forgot why they liked each other.

"I'm not edgy," Aimee replied. The room was silent. Then Aimee asked Doug a question.

"Hold on, I don't want to think right now," Doug snapped.

"O-K. Let me know, then," Aimee said, and left the room.

Although it sometimes seems as if the designers on "Trading Spaces" treat their rooms like throwaway canvases, what I saw from Doug was a lot of attention to the details of his project. During on-set downtime, if Doug wasn't outside signing autographs, he was usually in the room working. Aimee's crew worked extremely hard, too.

An episode of "Trading Spaces" is created exactly like a movie: The episode is broken down into individual scenes, planned, set up and then shot and often reshot until they're right. The lighting has to be right, the sound has to be right, and most of all the cast members need to know what they're doing. Sometimes it takes a half-hour or more to set up a scene. Then after the shot is done everything has to be taken down and moved to the next location.

The seemingly obvious problem with this is that "Trading Spaces" isn't a movie, it's a reality-based TV show, one that comes off feeling like a documentary, featuring real people, real houses and really hideous paint jobs (and sometimes even moss or hay) on the walls. That the show looks so real may explain why people feel cheated when, for example, they find out that the show is not always shot chronologically.

In Houston, for example, in front of the camera, Doug asks carpenter Amy Wynn Pastor to make him a bench. The bench in question, however, is sitting a few feet away, almost finished. They are, technically, lying -- but not being untruthful. Doug did indeed show his plans to Amy Wynn earlier, and she did build the bench. They just held off doing it for the camera.

Amy Wynn, Paige and the designers -- and even the homeowners -- all handle these on-camera lies really well. After lunch, Mendi heads outside to help Amy Wynn work on a shelving unit for the bedroom. They'll act as if Mendi has helped Amy Wynn with this entire project. As the crew heads to the backyard for another scene, I hang back and ask Amy Wynn how she feels about the fact that, on camera, she just let a homeowner take credit for her work.

"I've gotten a lot more comfortable with it," she says, continuing to work. She's wearing jeans and a tight sleeveless shirt with a deep neckline that exposes a lot of her amber skin. "It's fine with me; it's all part of the game." She compares it to the way she ostensibly takes credit for the work of Eddie Barnard, the other carpenter who's never mentioned on camera but appears in the credits as Prop Master. He handles some of the more intensive work, helping to ease a workload that would be near impossible for one person. When Amy Wynn first started with the show, she says, taking credit for Barnard's work was a source of guilt. "Every single day at the end of the shoot, I'd say, 'I'm sorry.'"

- - - - - - - - - - - -

"The magic always happens after lunch on Day 2," Laurie Hickson-Smith, the shoot's other designer, says when she comes in from next door to look at Doug's work. For most of the two days of filming, the room was just blue. In a few hours, though, it has what looks like a brand-new bed and furniture, funky lamps hanging upside down from the ceiling, a designer entertainment center with crown molding and new artwork. Now it's time for the final two scenes: the Designer Chat and the Reveal, where the completed rooms will finally be shown to their owners. On the living room couch, where we're all waiting while Paige gets ready to interview Doug about the room, Mendi asks if anyone has a Pepcid.

"I'm nervous again," she says.

I ask why. "I guess I'm just nervous because they can't do a redo." A few minutes later she'll continue to worry out loud: "If I say something stupid, it sticks."

A room in her home has been completely redesigned -- it may have hay glued to its walls or broken glass used as a design element -- yet she's worried about her on-camera performance. Her focus seems to be a bit off, but she's actually being really smart: Mendi knows what is permanent (the tape of her reaction, which will play again and again in reruns) and what can be undone (her room). She also knows what the producers know: This is the one shot that cannot be redone; reactions can't be faked.

For this reason, the crew is very protective about what is happening on the opposite set; they must prevent the homeowners from getting even a hint of what is going on next door. They'll be kept inside while someone checks to see if the other crew is shooting outside, or if Amy Wynn is working on something for their room. Crew members and visitors must check their shoes for revealing paint stains. The entire show rests on those final moments when the homeowners open their eyes and see their brand-new rooms for the very first time, and no one wants to spoil that.

Upstairs, two lights are set up near the foot of the bed, where the two camera operators are standing; Mike the sound guy is behind them. When they open their eyes, Erik and Kim will see more people and equipment than furniture. Doug says what I'm thinking: "Are they going to be able to see that there's a bed in here?"

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