S U R P R I S E !!!!. Review on While You Were Out

While You Were Out is another winner TV show on the learning channel.

In the format of Trading Spaces, While You Were Out, has a group of designers and carpenters and handy persons as well as 2 days and a set amount of money to redecorate a room or even an outside yard or garden of your home or apartment.

The difference between the shows is that on While You Were Out, the ''victim'' is an unsuspecting spouse or friend who has to be lured away from home under somewhat odd circumstances so the transformation can be a total surprise to them upon their return...On Trading Spaces, the whole family is involved.

In one episode, for example, an unsuspecting spouse is talked into believing that he has won a 2 day expense paid trip for 2 to a sports camp. So he asks a male friend to join him on this weekend..Little does he know that the male friend is in on the secret and is actually helping to keep him away from home, while sending videos and messages back home and allowing our team of ''workers'', including the spouse, to create the dream room the spouse has always wanted.

This dream room turns out to be his basement turned into a sports arena, complete with lockers (closets) and stadium seating(for watching the BIG screen TV) and a mural painted on the wall to look like a stadium filled with cheering sports fans.

I've seen some pretty mundane bedrooms change into Roman gardens, Japanese teahouses and 1970's discos! On one episode, they recreated a womans backyard into a lush English garden complete with a mini maze of wonderful shrubbery.

The fun starts when the time starts running short and it's down to on hour before the spouse returns or 1/2 hour before and the room isn't quite finished. It's quite funny watching everyone scurry around trying to find the right supplies and putting on the finishing touches so the spouse can come back to a complete room and be totally surprised.

It's really amazing what can be accomplished in 48 hours and a lot of energy and really not a lot of money.

This show (as well as a lot of others on The Discovery Learning Channel) is fun and interesting and can really give you some great and inexpensive ways to decorate or redecorate your living spaces.

I would recommend catching this show if you can. The cast is quite interesting and they make the chore of painting and building and redoing everything, really fun.