Remember the one about the red bedroom???? (Changing Rooms)

Member Name: dove3066

Product:	Changing Rooms
Date:	10/02/09 (27 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Launched the careers of many - gave us ideas to use in our own houses

Disadvantages: A little too off the wall sometimes

Back in the mid nineties this was must watch TV. I had totally forgotten about it until this weekend when I was clearing some books out and came across a changing rooms book I had been given for christmas one year.

The idea of the programme was that two sets of friends would swap houses for a couple of days and with the help of a designer and "Handy Andy" they would redecorate one room in the house with a budget of £500.

This would be no repainting of the wall from beige to mushroom - this would be painting the room bright red, puttling shutters on the windows, removing doors and making anything and everything taht you could possibly think of from MDF.

Some of the changes were readily accepted by the couples when the "big reveal" was done at the end of the programme, but the ones that were the best and funniest were the ones that the couples hated - the one that really sticks in my mind is the bright red and black bedroon that made the couple cry when it was revealed and they said that their bedroom looked like a tart's boudoire.

This was one of the mainstream designer programmes and really made people like Laurence LLewelyn-Bowen, Anna Ryder Richardson and Linda Barker household names. It was presented by Carole Smilie for whom this also became a sprinboard to many other jobs.

This programme whilst now out of vogue did make us all look at our own houses and realise we could do just as well - if not better than many trained designers!!!!!

Summary: A great programme - especially when they got it totally wrong