Doug Wilson, TLC TV Designer, Arrested

Doug Wilson, a talented designer appearing on Discovery Channel TLC’s Trading Spaces and hosting the Moving Up television show on the same channel was arrested December 31, 2008. Mr. Wilson, oh, let’s just call him Doug, was driving at 1:00 am in Decatur, Illinois and was totally oblivious to the flashing lights and sirens of a police car behind him. As we all know, you are suppose to pull over when you see their flashing lights and hear their siren. Though details are sketchy, apparently Doug did not pull over, the police vehicle was able to get around him though, and eventually, the police vehicle retuned from whence he was going (or gave up pursuit of the other vehicle?) to finally get Doug to pull over. Doug was arrested for driving under intoxication, driving on a suspended license, failure to yield the right-of-way to an emergency vehicle, and it appears that Doug also had an open bottle of booze in the car since he was also charged with illegal transportation of alcohol.

Doug Wilson is known for his quick thinking, sometimes sharp responses, and often rude, albeit sophomoric antics toward guests on TLC’s Trading Spaces and Moving Up television shows. For Trading Spaces, Doug and another popular TLC designer will each be assigned to redecorate one room in neighboring houses. The homeowners trade homes for the two-day duration of the re-do, assisting the assigned designer. Each homeowner hopes to have successfully conveyed to their neighbor what they do or more likely, do NOT want done to their home in the hope that their desires will by championed by the neighbor doing the labor of redecorating the designer-chosen room.

Anyone who has watched the show will remember a particularly poignant episode where a couple having their living room redone specifically asked their neighbor to ensure that nothing was done to their living room fireplace (specifically, they did not want the brick painted), should that be the room that the designer chose to redo. Doug Wilson was the designer assigned to their home, he chose the living room to redo, even noticed a note left on the fireplace by the homeowner to not do anything with the fireplace, and at no surprise to those of us who have been shaking our heads in disbelief at Doug from prior Trading Spaces antics, he covered the fireplace. In his defense, he did not paint the brick, he just covered it up.

At the end of the show, the homeowners return to their own homes where their reaction to the new design is caught on tape. The word “shock” is insufficient to describe the look on homeowner Pam’s face when she saw her living room. The walls were painted dark brown and then covered with a grid-like display painted on, making her walls look like they had huge white rectangles drawn in perfect horizontal and vertical formation. Doug was way off on this redesign. Surely he made the room look like what HE wanted it to look like, not something that he thought the homeowners wanted. But wait, there’s more. The view of the fireplace the homeowner feared might be painted but instead was boxed in put her over the top. She started crying on camera. She walked out of the room while Doug the Mr. Homeowner remained in front of the camera. Mr. Homeowner says to Doug that “this isn’t us.” Off camera, Pam’s microphone is still on and we hear her weeping.

In the end, the TV show had to take down the fireplace covering because it was against fire code. Lesson learned: don’t go on the TV show unless you are willing to have any room in your house invaded and redone to whatever the designer deems best, no matter how well meaning they were. That blanket statement may sound cruel and in all fairness, designer Frank has changed his plans more than once when the neighboring couple helping him redo the homeowners’ digs says that they really do not think the homeowner would like the suggested change. We do wonder, though, since the homeowner specifically stated a feature they wanted to keep as-is, why didn’t the designer (infamous Doug) incorporate that wish in his design.

TLC’s Moving Up program follows two new homeowners through major house remodels. In the end, the prior owners of the two house returns to evaluate the changes, giving them a rating of 1 to 10. Doug hosts the TV show, visiting the new homeowners to offer advice and his expected crass remarks, returning during the remodel to check status, and then after the completion of the remodels, Doug returns again to walk the prior homeowners through their house to pull out their thoughts on what they think about the home that is no longer theirs. The results sometimes show the prior homeowner puzzled, sometimes miffed, and occasional saddened by the changes. And at times, the prior homeowners’ reactions are amazement at how much better their home looks following the new homeowners renovations. Since Doug only makes suggestions to the remodeling homeowners and has no direct impact on their final design choice, Moving Up is a tamer version of Trading Spaces.

Doug Wilson, overall, has become the man we love to hate. Much like being drawn to rubber neck to look at an accident on the highway, we have to watch his TV shows to see what embarrassment, sadness, and, well yeah, sometimes joy that he brings to homeowners and us, the viewing audience.

Following his arrest, Doug spent a short time in jail and was released on $1,000 bail.