those shows bug me because it never fails that someone says something like "you can change pretty much anything, except whatever you do, DON'T paint the room brown!" And sure enough, before the "designer" even says it, you already know they are going to paint the room completely brown!
Now the episode of trading spaces where they had $100,000 was pretty darn cool, especially with all the free donated electronics equipment.
And my wife watches that Extreme Home Makeovers, or something like that with that Ty guy...that is pretty cool and they do some amazing work on some of those places.