Couple with Lenoir County roots to be featured on TLC tonight

Angie Daniels Tucker and her husband, Ryan, are featured on TLC’s design show, ‘Trading Spaces.’ Photo and video courtesy of TLC

Grab a cookie and a seat on the couch because hometown favorite Angie Daniels Tucker is hitting the television screen tonight.

She’ll appear on TLC’s hit show “Trading Spaces” at 8 p.m., today. Tucker is famed for her custom cookie creations as part of the duo behind Southern Sugar Bakery in Raleigh. During the show, she’ll trade in her cookie decorating techniques for carpentry and home redesign.

In “Trading Spaces,” two sets of neighbors redecorate a room in each others’ home. With the help of a professional designer and a carpenter, teams are given two days and a $2,000 budget to complete the redesign.

Tucker and her husband, Ryan, who live in Raleigh, have no control over the space in their home, but can give input before the decorating begins. They’ll spend the night in the home of their neighbors, Ashley and David Brown, and will not return to their house until the reveal.

The idea to apply for the television show came to Tucker while on her way home to Raleigh from visiting her family in Lenoir County.

“We were sitting in traffic in New Bern on our way back home, and I was scrolling through Instagram when an ad appeared looking for contestants for the show from California or North Carolina,” she said. “It had been a long, hot day and I loved ‘Trading Spaces’ during the original run, so I called Ryan who was driving in a car behind me and asked if we could apply.”

He agreed, she texted their neighbor, Ashley, and a whirlwind application was completed while in the car on the highway. Several applications and interviews later, the pair of neighbors were chosen and the production crew arrived in North Carolina during the week of the N.C. State Fair in October.

“This experience was so much fun. The production crew was so sweet and now I feel like we have friends from all over the United States,” Tucker said. “It was a lot filming in two days, but definitely something I would do again.”

Tucker’s Raleigh home was the original home of Southern Sugar Bakery during the three years the company was a licensed home-based bakery. Thousands of cookies later, 16 employees and an appearance on the Today Show has given Tucker and her partner, Christin Kubasko, a bustling in-demand business.

The Tuckers worked with designer Hildi Santo Tomas and carpenter Joanie Sprague; the Browns worked with designer Laurie Smith and carpenter Brett Tutor. Both redesigned their master bedrooms.

The N.C. Department of Agriculture and N.C. State Fair have a few surprises in store for viewers during the episode.

“This was 100 percent out of my comfort zone. In my home, every wall is gray colored, and here we are on the show discussing bright everything,” Tucker said. “This really brought us all closer together because you have to positively trust other people to redesign an actual room of your house.”

“Trading Spaces” originally aired on TLC from 2000-08 and was rebooted in 2018. Host Paige Davis returns, as well as original designers and carpenters including Ty Pennington. Tucker’s episode will be the third aired this season.

Tucker is a 1998 South Lenoir High School graduate, and former Miss Neuse, Lenoir County Junior Miss (now Distinguished Young Women) and Miss Kinston-Lenoir County.