The dining room was now painted in a brick metallic color with a large, frosted-glass window.

"Great idea to frost it," Derek Hyde remarked, almost wishing he and his wife had thought of it.

As they entered the formerly pale yellow but now cranberry-colored kitchen with Wilson as their guide, Sarah Hyde said, "I love it. It reminds me of the lipsticks at a makeup counter."

The hallway evoked a different set of feelings.

"It reminds me of a hotel," Sarah said, as she looked at the copper penny-colored metallic paint with geometric shapes on the walls. "I like it, but it's not my home; I couldn't live here," she added.

Derek Hyde complained that "all the squares are making me dizzy."

Walking toward Tommy's old room, a place filled with special memories, the Hydes appeared nervous. Upon seeing that it had become an office with teal metallic paint and that the hand-painted white clouds that used to be there were gone, they agreed that Martha and Minh Le had done a good job with the room.

"It's not Tommy's room, but it's great," said Sarah Hyde, though she wistfully remarked that she had hope to see the clouds "one more time."

As reality shows go, the Hydes' polite, respectful reaction was more Paula Abdul than Simon Cowell. Nor does "Moving Up" stoop to the level of some of the newer crop of home makeover shows. It uses regular people, as opposed to Fox's "Renovate My Family," which features triplets who are former Playboy playmates as carpenters, or Discovery Home's "Toolbelt Diva," with former lingerie model Norma Vally.

"Moving Up" may be banking on the idea that makeover programs don't have to be mostly sexual or obnoxious to garner ratings; it's sufficient to tap into the American public's seemingly endless quest to nest. According to a report to be issued in January by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, total home improvement spending, including homeowners and renters, rose to $233 billion in 2003, compared with $212 billion in 2001 and $180 billion in 1999. For homeowners only, home improvement spending increased to $176 billion in 2003, up from $164 billion in 2001 and $136 billion in 1999.

"Everyone has an interest in making their home more appealing and comfortable," said John Lijewski, president of the International Interior Design Association, based in Chicago.

"Moving Up" provides ideas on how to do that. What distinguishes this show from "Trading Spaces" and other home makeover shows is that this time, homeowners "put forth the vision for their home that they want," executive producer McCarthy said. This series' themes, she said, are "what's good for the goose isn't necessarily good for the gander" and that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

In addition, an underlying assumption of "Moving Up" -- that people want to make changes to a home they move into -- is true to reality, said Daphne Bloomberg, immediate past president of the Washington chapter of the New Jersey-based International Furnishings and Design Association. "Very few people buy a home that is exactly what they've always wanted -- there's always something you can do to make it yours," even if it's as simple as new moldings, doors or windows, she said.

But Bloomberg, an interior designer, is skeptical that the changes homeowners really want are obvious to them in the first few months. In practice, most new occupants see what their immediate needs are and the rest "evolves over time," she said.