'Trading Spaces' host helps keep going smoothly

By Thomas Nord
Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal

The way Paige Davis sees it, being host of cable TV's hit "Trading Spaces" show means more than filling the screen with a pretty face and a perky attitude.

Paige Davis is the host of "Trading Spaces" on The Learning Channel. The show features couples who agree to let designers remake their homes.

She's their rock, an instant pal who offers a shoulder to cry on or a swift kick in the rear when the need arises.

"I'm coming into their homes and trying to make them comfortable," says the 32-year-old singer and dancer and now host of the buzz-laden Learning Channel show. "I'm like a guide for them. I try to be there to prop them up when they need it."

And sometimes, they really need it.

"You never know what's going to happen," Davis says by phone from Houston, where she is spending a couple of days off to get, among other things, a pedicure. "There could be tears of joy, or they could leave the room, they're so upset."

Such as the now infamous episode — it has reached almost folkloric status among the show's fans — in which a Tacoma, Wash., woman's beloved fireplace mantle was boxed in, very much against her wishes. Her sobs could be heard off-camera.

"It does make good television," Davis admits. "I have friends who tell me they love it when that happens. I hate it. It's terribly awkward and sad."

And, adds Davis, pretty rare. In the 45 episodes that have aired since she assumed the duties as host last fall, only four or five couples have openly disliked the treatment their room received.

"That's out of 90 rooms," she points out. "But everyone brings up that fireplace."

Davis was neither handy with a tool belt nor inclined toward a TV career when a friend who worked for the company that produces "Trading Spaces" steered her toward the show last year.

Based on a British show in which two couples "trade" homes for 48 hours and remake a troublesome space with the help of designers, carpenters and a modest budget, "Trading Spaces" made its premiere on TLC in 2000 and quickly gained a cult following.

Davis was enjoying a successful if somewhat obscure career dancing in shows like "Chicago" and "Beauty and the Beast" both on Broadway and in touring companies. But when the original host of "Trading Spaces" quit, her friend saw a natural replacement in Davis.

"She called, screaming into my answering machine that I needed to get an agent to get me an audition," Davis says. "Which was not easy to do, because my entire background was in theater and musical theater."

Then again, no one ever got a bachelor's degree in "hosting," and the effervescent Davis got the job. The program has expanded from 45 episodes last season to a planned 60 for the upcoming season, which begins airing in September. Davis is attached to "Trading Spaces" through 2003-'04.

Her heart is still on stage, though, and it doesn't take much to get Davis to wax nostalgic about her turn as Anita in a school production of "West Side Story" during her sophomore year.

"That's the absolute highlight for me," she says, laughing, but only a little bit. "Anita can really steal the show ... and I tried my best."

Born in Philadelphia, Davis and her family moved to Louisville when she was a preteen. A budding gymnast, she discovered her mother's Broadway albums and set off in a new direction.

"I could, all by myself, all day long, over and over again, act out 'West Side Story' in the basement," says Davis, who went by her first name, Mindy, back then. "I would play Anita, I would play Bernardo, the Jets, the Sharks, Maria, Tony — the whole bit. I would do the whole show. That's how it started."

After graduating, Davis studied dance at Southern Methodist University in Dallas before heading to Los Angeles, where she found work in commercials, music videos and dancing on tour with the Beach Boys.

"We were backup dancers, as opposed to backup singers," she says. "We wore sequined bikinis and did the 'pony' and the 'swim' — and some real dancing, too. It was a blast."

More-serious work followed. Davis would eventually meet her husband, actor Patrick Page, while they toured together with "Beauty and The Beast." They were settling into a theatrical life in Manhattan when "Trading Spaces" called.

Both Davis and her husband are on the road now; she with "Trading Spaces," he with the road company of "The Lion King." On her breaks, they meet up wherever "The Lion King" happens to be — in this case, Houston.

Originally aimed at women 25 to 54, "Trading Spaces" has won a broader fan base that includes men and young people, no doubt drawn by the program's relentlessly quirky designers and its potential for dramatic outbursts.

As sympathetic as Davis is to folks like that Washington couple with their fireplace, she says that participants who open their homes to "Trading Spaces" are told in advance they must take what they get.

"You are taking a risk and taking a gamble. We tell people that they are not 'clients' of these designers, but that they (the designers) can do whatever they want to. The whole point of the show is to open your mind and broaden your horizons."

Anyone who has watched the show, which has been so popular that TLC runs all-day marathons, would know that this flaky crew of designers is more influenced by Salvador Dali than by Martha Stewart.

"The show has really inspired me," Davis says. "I would like to believe I would be brave enough to trust someone to do this, and be brave enough to accept something that wouldn't be my first choice."

A weekend decorator at best, Davis says she finds herself learning by osmosis.

"Home improvement was not my specialty at all. Now I hear myself saying things like, 'No! That needs to dry first.' How did I know that?"