Bloomberg also questions another premise of the show: that homeowners who have lived in a home only for a few years really care all that much about what happens after they leave even if they haven't built or designed the house themselves. A more compelling show might feature a child who grew up in a home through high school then left and came back 20 years later. "That's where you'd find real personal attachment," she said.

As "Moving Up" prepares to air, it has plenty of company. Leading the ratings pack among such shows is "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" on ABC, which in mid-November ranked as television's seventh most watched show, with 17.9 million viewers, according to the Nielsen Ratings. Home & Garden Television offers viewers approximately 20 home makeover shows, including "Design on a Dime," "Designing for the Sexes" and "Date With Design."

Beside "Trading Spaces," TLC airs "Trading Spaces: Family," a spinoff with families instead of couples, as well as "While You Were Out," "Clean Sweep" and "In a Fix." Even MTV and VH1 have gotten into the act, offering celebrity room makeovers in "Crib Crashers" and "Rock the House."

In January, there will be more home makeover shows debuting in addition to "Moving Up." TLC plans "Town Haul," in which a small town gets a makeover. And ABC will add to its lineup a spinoff of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" by introducing "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition: How'd They Do That?," which is to examine how the gargantuan renovations on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" can be completed in seven days.

Some professionals in the design world would be just as happy if the frenzy died down. For example, Michelle Snyder, public relations manager of the District-based American Society of Interior Designers, said her organization "has to spend a lot of time debunking the myths perpetuated by these shows," such as the notion that rooms can be redecorated in 48 hours with $1,000.

Snyder believes the shows usually don't give a realistic picture of what designers do. "They are not real; they're purely entertainment, like 'Survivor' or 'The Apprentice,' " she said, adding that many of the designers on the show are, in fact, decorators.

"Any tradesperson can call himself or herself a decorator," she said, whereas "designers need to go through a stringent process to be licensed."

Lijewski of the International Interior Design Association, a principal in the New York office of Perkins+Will design firm, is also critical of home makeover shows. "They make the field of interior design look like a hobby; they don't do the profession justice," he said. While anyone can pick paint colors or couch fabrics, "it takes a trained eye to do it well," he said, asking, "Do you know how many shades of white there are?"

Moreover, he worries that the shows focus too much on the aesthetic elements of a room and not enough on the health, safety and environmental issues that come up during renovation. The latter issues, he said, "don't make for interesting television," he said.

Other designers balance their criticism by noting the way the shows can open consumers' eyes to a variety of design options. Bloomberg of the International Furnishings and Design Association said her clients are sometimes confused when she describes certain types of window treatments, moldings, doors or other features of a house. Then, "they call me a week later and say, 'Oh, I was watching such and such show and saw exactly what you were talking about,' " she said.

For the participants in the show filmed in the Northwest Washington house, "Moving Up" conferred additional benefits beyond the design ideas generated. Minh and Martha Le's modernization of their home made it easier for Derek and Sarah Hyde to bid it a final goodbye.

"If it hadn't been painted it might feel more like ours, and we might miss it more; now that it is [painted] it doesn't feel like ours," Derek Hyde said.

As for the Le family, they not only love their new house, but also have come to believe that "the average person can do designer rooms," Martha Le said. Though the project was "stressful at times," she said, they "met really great people" along the way.

In addition, they got four rooms redone in three months, quite a feat for Minh, who in their last condo "took eight months to choose a sofa," Martha said.

Article provided by Rebecca R. Kahlenberg at the Washingon Post.