They’re not exactly reality TV

At the Sunset Boulevard Home Depot, Alison Mihlik is learning about faux finish painting. As instructor Joel Gomez begins -- “You mix one quart of color to a gallon of glaze.... This darker color goes on top” -- the class of 18 and a gathering crowd listen intently.

Afterward, Mihlik, a Los Angeles movie industry logistics coordinator, says she’ll try the technique, which uses different colors to create the appearance of marble or other surfaces. But what she’d rather be doing falls more in line with “my favorite of all of the design TV shows, MTV’s ‘Crib Crashers’ ”: kicking back, as designers arrive and complete all of the work for her.

The reality of today’s household design shows, which virtually wallpaper cable TV these days, is that they fuel the illusion of easy home improvement with little sense of time or cost. And a big part of that is because the current spate emphasizes personalities over techniques, drama over substance.

“I’ve been a designer on one of the TV shows, ‘Designer’s Challenge’ ” on HGTV, says Christopher Grubb, owner of the Arch Interiors Design Group in Beverly Hills. “It’s a lot of fun to watch, but about 25% of the people that come to me haven’t any experience with design. So they’ve seen these shows and they forget that it’s TV.

“It’s nonreality really. People don’t think about the professional’s time that isn’t factored into the $1,000 room makeover they saw on television.”

Wall finishing specialists Max Rodriguez and Patrick Davis of North Hollywood’s Patrick Max Decorative Art agree with Grubb. “It takes about 12 hours’ work for a professional to complete a 10-by-15-foot room,” Rodriguez says.

“We’re glad that these shows have brought an awareness of design to the public,” Davis chimes in. “But the shows give you the impression that you can do the faux painting technique easily and get perfect results the next day.”

In fact, the desire to get away from such nuts-and-bolts issues helped bring one of the major home design shows to cable, says Stephen Schwartz, a Style network executive who translated BBC’s “Changing Rooms” into the Learning Channel’s “Trading Spaces.”

“In the fall of 1999 ... we saw that when we moved from the Christopher Lowell-type programming on the Discovery Channel and well-performing daytime programming right into Bob Vila’s hammer-and-nails stuff, the ratings would drop,” Schwartz says. “We were losing the women and not getting the men.” (The Discovery, Learning and Travel channels are part of the Discovery network.)

These days, programs such as “Trading Spaces” (TLC), “Designing for the Sexes” (HGTV) and “Surprise by Design” (Discovery) are taking over some of the best real estate on television, with something to suit virtually every taste.

The Travel Channel’s “Passport to Design” restyles rooms in the U.S. with an international accent -- anything from a Swedish country bedroom to a Kenyan porch addition to a Balinese-style structure on stilts in Minnesota. MTV’s “Crib Crashers” remodels viewers’ hangouts based on their favorite celebrities’ homes; fans have copied Jessica Simpson’s and Mariah Carey’s decor, and the most frequent requests come from fraternities hoping to replicate the Playboy Mansion.

There’s even a pint-sized “Trading Spaces” -- “Trading Spaces: Boys vs. Girls” -- that plays on NBC Saturday mornings and on the Discovery Kids Channel; so far, it has done a tropical rainforest, a skateboarding room, a Hollywood starlet’s room and a ‘70s disco lounge.

One of the principal features of all of these programs is that they are personality-driven. Viewers tend to identify with one designer or love to hate another, making TV design shows a kind of 21st century soap opera.

“ ‘Designing for the Sexes’ is my favorite show,” says Laura Scotlan, a 50-year-old travel agent in Oakland. “There’s this one designer that I can’t stand!” she adds, then later enthuses about “this carpenter that is so cute.”

Indeed, the cult of personality has led to sex-symbol status for at least one handyman, Andrew Dan-Jumbo, from the TLC series “While You Were Out.” In May, he was named one of People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People.”

“Having Andrew on TLC’s team is like working with one of the Beatles,” says the show’s executive producer, Michael Klein. “We see crying, screaming women and all sorts of drama all of the time.”

In addition to creating its own celebrities, the genre is even drawing established stars including Courteney Cox and husband David Arquette, albeit off camera. The couple are executive producers of “Mix It Up,” a home-themed series on the Women’s Entertainment network planned for October.

Though the shows continue to play up personalities, the people and their reactions, that doesn’t mean the programs are completely without practical application.

“The best part of watching the shows is what you learn,” says Scotlan. “My friend Linda and I now have a whole new vocabulary -- ‘chair rails,’ ‘sconces,’ ‘faux finish’ -- all of the little design buzzwords.”

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Full house

Though there are seemingly endless variations of home improvement programs, many come down to a basic formula: a host; a designer, landscaper or some other professional; and a viewer who wants a redesign, wants to surprise friends or family or wants to prepare a property for sale.

A sampling:

A&E;

“All Year Round With Katie Brown”

“Makeover Mamas”

“Sell This House”

BBC America

“Changing Rooms”

“Ground Force”

Discovery

“Surprise by Design”

“Monster House”

“The Christopher

Lowell Show”

“Rally Round the

House” *

Discovery Kids

“Trading Spaces: Boys

vs. Girls”

HGTV

“Curb Appeal”

“Designer’s Challenge”

“Designing for the

Sexes”

“Design on a Dime”

“Divine Design”

“Ground Rules”

“House Hunters”

“Landscaper’s

Challenge”

“Mission: Organization”

“Weekend Warriors”

The Learning

Channel

“Bob Vila’s Home

Again”

“Trading Spaces”

“Trading Spaces:

Family”

“While You Were Out”

MTV

“Crib Crashers”

NBC

“B. Smith With Style”

“Trading Spaces: Boys

vs. Girls”

PBS

“P. Allen Smith’s

Garden Home”

“This Old House”

Style Channel

“Area”

Travel Channel

“Passport to Design”

Women’s

Entertainment

“Mix It Up” *

* In production

-- Carolyn Patricia Scott