Mississippi: Golden Pond

Shout-out to winkyboy.

MPDP announces that we're in Jackson, Mississippi, and that it's Laurie's hometown. We see two couples -- Susan and Julius and their neighbours Danielle and Jay -- sitting on a blanket by what I presume is Golden Pond. We see Laurie squiring Hildi and Amy Wynn around town, showing them the local sights.

We see Jay and Danielle's bedroom, which is a large, reasonably tasteful room that already looks better than about 75% of the "afters" on this show. I find it boring as heck when the show redecorates rooms that hardly need it, especially for homeowners who appear to be able to afford the services of an interior decorator if they wanted; there's not as much at stake. Anyway, their walls are a muted greyish-purple; the carpet looks like a natural sisal colour; and the woodwork, ceiling, and molding are white. They have an odd headboard made of dark wood, with small coordinating chests of drawers on each side of the bed as night tables. There are good-sized lamps on the night tables. The bed has a white coverlet over a patterned dust ruffle with matching accent pillows. The windows have white wooden louvers on them. Big ficus in the corner. Gold-framed painting above the bed. There's a white fireplace on the right-hand side of the bed. At the end of the bed is a large, low chest of drawers with a silver-framed mirror above it. In the corner opposite the ficus is a smallish dark wood armoire. There's a blue chaise longue on the left-hand side of the bed. It's a nice enough room; a little blah. Very hotel room-ish. Danielle says that they inherited most of this furniture from her parents-in-law, and that they'd like something of their own. They love the fireplace but think it should be more of a focal point in the room. Jay would like to see some new fabric on the bed or new window treatments. Jay claims they're pretty open to anything. That's easy to say when you know you're getting Laurie, buddy. Danielle doesn't want any black on the walls. Jay says they don't like animal prints. He also begs them to leave the ceiling fan, which we see for the first time is a plain white model, mercifully free of the light-fixture agglutinations that render most ceiling fans so very hideous. Danielle argues with him. Jay: "Please, Laurie, don't take down the ceiling fan." Danielle, to the camera: "It's okay if you take down the ceiling fan." Jay: "No, it's not." How much would I never like to see or hear about another ceiling fan as long as I live?

On to Susan and Julius's bathroom, which is roughly the same area as a little coach house I once rented. You could probably park a midsize car in this john with room to spare. I've met immigrant families of four living in spaces about this size. It's very blah, though, if lavishly so -- precisely the kind of dcor I can't stand: mottled medium grey tiles, mottled light grey wallpaper, lots of faux-Colonial white cabinetry, plenty of mirrored wall, and lots of brass. Strips of bare clear light bulbs above the mirrors. Large window with wooden louvers above the bathtub. Hate brass, hate gold, not fond of large expanses of mirrored wall. Oh well. And while this bathroom is larger than many New York apartments -- hell, the shower stall alone is probably larger than some apartment bathrooms -- and features double sinks and a huge tub in addition to the glass-enclosed shower, the toilet is nowhere to be seen. Probably has its own little private enclave. Maybe its own compound. Not to worry, because Hildi's on hand to stink up the place more than enough to compensate.

Susan and Julius are in a bubble bath with candles lit on the shelves around it -- I presume they're wearing swimsuits. I really don't think I want to know the details, frankly. Susan mentions, for the benefit of the legally blind, that their master bathroom is huge. Julius says it's too big. Susan doesn't like the fact that the shower is opposite a mirrored wall, meaning you more or less have to see yourself while you're showering. Well, I suppose some folks would be into that (a couple of this show's designers come to mind), but Susan wouldn't mind if the shower were enclosed somehow. The bespectacled Julius says he can't see himself when he's in the shower. So I guess Susan's on her own with this problem. Julius says he'd be upset if he came in and saw the tile was gone, although he wouldn't mind different tile on the countertops. Susan: "Maybe some tropical palms and stuff...." Julius says Susan likes the beach, and beachy-looking stuff and colours. Susan: "What do you want, buddy?" Julius: "I want whatever you want." She laughs and doesn't quite know what to say.

Key swap. Man, that Jay is tall. It's not unusual for MPDP to tower over the HOs, but she looks positively puny here to Jay, who's a head taller than she. Jay is wearing his smock tucked neatly into his Dockers. He doesn't seem like the sort to go along with much nonsense. MPDP mentions that Susan and Julius know Laurie (and her husband), so it will be like catching up with an old friend. Julius's foot is in a cast; MPDP warns him that his "bum foot" doesn't excuse him from the rules, nor do he and his wife get any special treatment because of being old friends of Laurie's. They all run off.

Jay mutters, "What the heck have we gotten ourselves into?" as they go into their neighbour's house. They find Hildi covering a mirror with a dropcloth. Now, see, if Frank were doing this room, I'd have to assume that was the art project. Hildi says they're making Trading Spaces history by doing the first bathroom in the show's history. She asks how they feel about the bathroom; Danielle says it needs some work. Hildi says they're going to give the bathroom a totally different look, "starting with the walls: we're going to try to give it a natural, outdoorsy, water [sic], bathroom feeling." Jay looks puzzled. Hildi claims that they're really going to do something special to the walls, if by "do something special to the walls" you mean "staple more than 6,000 pieces of impractical, mold-promoting, vapour barrier-destroying, dust-catching, impossible-to-clean crap to them." She claims they're going to "try to unify the shower," and I have no idea what that means. She adds that they're going to give the cabinets a new look. They clear the room, during which sequence Hildi spends much time in the shower twirling around and pretending to shower. Then she gets in the bathtub and mimes some bathing there, and then jumps out and pretends to primp and prance in front of the mirror. Sigh. Only thirty-two more episodes of twirling and prancing and bellowing carpenters before I can spend the summer recovering in the new TWoPrecappers' sanatorium facility that I understand is being built. Though Glark and Wing just laughed uncomfortably when I mentioned it to them the other day and inquired about its progress. Keep buying that Tubey stuff, people.

Susan and Julius find Laurie playing around with their Craftmatic Adjustable Bed. Aren't they a little young for one of those? ("Bed goes up. Bed goes down. Bed goes up. Bed goes down." Yeah, I know, I'd bet she's never seen The Simpsons, either. But wouldn't you have squawked with surprise if she'd said that?) It must be said, however, that she looks fantastic, especially given that she just had a baby in August, and I suspect this wasn't taped, you know, last week or anything. Julius and Susan clamber onto the bed; Laurie asks their thoughts. Susan mentions colour. Laurie agrees that there should be a different colour. Susan also mentions window treatments; Laurie agrees with that, too, and says that they're going for drama and glamour in the room. She promises a dramatic eight-foot headboard. I'm really getting tired of the huge-headboard thing, though I like some of them. Surely they're Officially Pass by now, and they're definitely way overdone on this show. Laurie says they're adding shelves to the wall with the fireplace and putting a giant mirror over the mantel. She says they're doing floor-to-ceiling draperies, and that they're going to lose some pieces. By gum, y'all, this looks like a decent hotel room right now, and it's going to look like a slightly different and better hotel room when she's done! They clear the room, revealing the grooves worn deep into the carpet by the bed frame. Since Laurie's moving the bed, I guess they're stuck with those. (Actually, Martha Stewart claims you can get marks like that out of the carpet by wetting them slightly and letting them dry, because as the fibres dry they swell up. Now, I've never tried this myself, and she also denies any wrongdoing in the ImClone mess, so you should just take what Martha says with a big chunky grain of unrefined Celtic sea salt.)

Hildi reveals her paint. What I love here is that there's absolutely nothing I can say to fake out readers who haven't seen the show. If I claimed it was acid green and poo brown, you'd believe me. If I said it was Pepto-Bismol Pink and Milk of Magnesia Bottle Blue, you'd believe me. And why not? There's simply nothing so outlandish Hildi won't inflict it on somebody. In this case, she pours out some light lavender paint, which is okay if you like lavender, but personally I'm not fond of it, though I like most other shades of purple. I don't see it going with the mottled grey tiles, though. Not that the lavender paint is going to be the biggest problem here...nosirree. Danielle says she loves it. Jay seems more skeptical. Hildi then pours some metallic gold paint into a tray. Yikes. My uncle had a dune buggy painted that colour around 1975. Danielle says, "Wow, it's metallic! Where's it going?" Hildi: "Where's what going?" Now, Danielle was obviously commenting on the metallic paint, so why does Hildi ask this? Is she really paying that little attention, or is it her usual ring-and-run method of presenting her ideas, to throw out a colour or a material and then ignore questions and responses until she thinks the stuff has had time to seep into her team's souls and warp them to her will? I don't know. Hildi merrily says that it's going on all the cabinets, all the woodwork, and all the trim, all the doors, all the moulding, everything that's wood: "Kia's not the only person who can do a room tacky enough for Vegas!" Okay, she doesn't say that. But she's thinking it. Jay looks skeptical. Danielle nods in a subdued way. Hildi grabs a roller on a long handle and rolls it in the lavender paint. Danielle correctly guesses that it's going on the ceiling. You can tell Jay's already decided that Hildi's a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

Laurie says they're going to be bringing colour in more through the fabrics than the walls. "We're going to do the classic old combination of aqua and camel." She gestures to a large-scale plaid fabric in those shades, and even though I'm not all that crazy about plaid myself, I'm so grateful to see some fabric that's reasonably attractive and obviously not some dollar-store reject that I love it anyway. And I do like the colours. She shows them the fabric for the bedding, which is a floral tapestry print in the same colours. And then there's some creamy beige fabric for pillows. Susan says they're beautiful. I like the bedding fabric -- I'm pretty partial to tapestry prints. She says the windows will be a solid aqua colour. She then shows them the paint for the walls, which is a soft camel colour. Very nice. A lot of forum posters complained that it was yellow, but it looks much more tan than yellow on my screen.

Jay starts painting the ceiling lavender, saying he's not sure about that colour. Hildi's typically surprised to hear it, and claims that it's like the sky, or her interpretation thereof. Why is she always surprised to find that people don't see things the way she does, when she prides herself on being so adventurous and avant-garde? She hands Danielle a brush filled with Dune Buggy Gold and tells her to start on the woodwork. (Nothing has yet been taped up, mind you.) Hildi says she's going to go get what they're putting on the walls. The suspense would be killing me if TLC didn't insist on giving away practically everything in the promos for the show. The bumper to the commercial is Laurie hula-hooping for all she's worth. She's pretty good at it, too.

MPDP grills Laurie about why she has furniture paint if she's not painting their furniture. Laurie explains that they're building shelves. This isn't something Mippy could guess for herself after, what, nearly seventy-five shows? Laurie says they're just going to be painting the shelves so that they look like they tie in with the beautiful mahogany furniture, which she would never paint.

Hildi makes her grand entrance with an armload of red and purple and white fake flowers (made, probably, of nylon or rayon or some such thing -- I very much doubt they're silk at ten cents a blossom) and tells her team to look at what they're putting all over the walls. Danielle laughs. Jay glances at them and says, "You've got to be kidding." Hildi: "No! Isn't that a great idea? We're gonna..." Jay: "No." (Notice that as soon as he disagrees with her she stops making eye contact with him altogether.) Hildi: "Yes!" Jay: "No." Hildi: "Yes!" Danielle asks if she's for real as Jay says "no" one more time and Hildi screeches, "Yes! I'm telling you, it's a great idea!" No, Hildi: saying something doesn't make it so. She announces that they're going to pluck all the flowers off the stems and staple them to the walls. I bet the "Webster Street" people just went into PTSD-related convulsions. Hildi says they're going to have wall-to-wall flowers and rhapsodizes, "Isn't that just luxuriously, just elegant, and..." Jay: "No." Jay's the NoHO. Hildi laughs obliviously, adding, "And, there's only six thousand of them!" Sweet. Fancy. Moses. Or roses, more likely. Oy. This is a terrible idea on just about every level you can think of.

Laurie's team is painting and MPDP wants to know how Julius messed up his foot. He says he did it on a motorcycle. MPDP says they can't even give him any sympathy because it's his own fault. Boy, that's pretty hard-ass. Laurie narrates that he "went through a building" and didn't have a "head thing" (helmet, I presume) on, so it's a miracle he wasn't hurt any more. Oh, one of those people who won't wear a helmet? Now I'm with MPDP: no sympathy from me. You have to have Cheez Whiz for brains not to wear a helmet on a motorcycle. Laurie thought he ran into a barn; Julius says it was a house.

NoHO tells his wife that he's trying to keep an open mind, but that it's tough. One of my high-school history teachers used to warn us that if we kept an open mind, people would just toss a lot of garbage in. Then again, he was a reactionary, sexist, closet case. In this case, I'm with Jay. This is a ridiculous idea. He says that he just can't imagine flowers all over the walls. Danielle says it could look cool. But then she points out that there'd be a lot of dust in there. No kidding. That's the least of it. What about the mold and mildew factor? What about the destruction of the walls? What about the impossibility of cleaning something like this? What about the expense and difficulty of fixing it? Jay: "Glad it's their house." Me too, buddy.

Laurie shows Amy Wynn her carpentry projects. Laurie says that the motif for the room is grids/squares. The headboard is going to be a tall wooden frame divided into "window panes" with mullions, and have upholstered fabric behind it.

Hildi staples the first flower onto the wall. She fires two staples into it and starts on the one, saying that they shouldn't overlap them too much, since she only has 6,000 of them and she's not exactly sure how many it's going to take to cover the walls. Jay: "Well, maybe we won't have enough 'cause we don't have to do it." By which I think he meant, "Maybe it won't matter, 'cause we don't have to do it." Hildi, stapling away: "I think we do have enough. I told you, we have eleven boxes." How I wish we were seeing Jay's reactions shots in this scene. No soup for the camera operator!

Laurie tells Amy Wynn that she wants very plain, eight-foot bookshelves. They're going to be two and a half feet wide; Amy Wynn says she had to change the depth because of how close they are to the door. Laurie's a little disappointed about that, but thinks it will be okay: "They just can't put any massive art books on there." I imagine Jay and Danielle will be able to cope somehow.

MPDP beheads fake flowers as she teases Jay about having his Trading Spaces smock tucked all nice and neat. Hildi fires two or three staples into each flower. Six thousand flowers, two or three staples apiece, two tiny holes per staple, equals 24,000-36,000 tiny holes in the wall. Those holes are in walls made of drywall specially designed to handle the moisture of a bathroom, and are not meant to be pierced tens of thousands of times. I wouldn't expect Hildi to know that, though. Or if she does, it's all too evident that she doesn't care. The Abominatrix (tm winkyboy) strikes again! MPDP says she can't wait for Jay's shirt to come out, while he insists that it's not going to. Hildi says something about making Trading Spaces history and how anything goes in a bathroom. That Hildi: what a madcap!