Design Star: It's Nate!! It's NATE!!!!!

Okay, so I was gone last week but they have this new thing called a DVR that allowed me to watch the show when I got home. Which i did, and will now recap in a few sentences:

• Karl got all architectural and camera ready and won.


• Mark went all woody [again!] and used some old things he found as wall art [again!].


• Meg hoisted a 200-pound ottoman over her head, and the lifted a Toyota Prius off of a kitten, and half-designed a room with a crooked art display.


• Kelly refused to listen to a five-year-old who wanted bunk beds and should have gone home but for some reason did not.


• Leslie turned a two-year-old's show biz performance room into a guest room with a wonky stage from which she was cancelled.


• Kevin went all pop of color and yappy little dog and, eventually, he went home, too.

Caught up? Good.
This week the designers are tasked with taking one of the smaller condos in their building and using $2500.00 to spruce it up, like say, the owner of the condo might do. They are given identical spaces with furniture and some accessories that they can use or discard. This is like the White Box Challenge from weeks back, but now it's a White Room.
There are no new ideas.
Let's rip:

Meg
For some reason Meg makes up a whole story about the person who lives in her space; some sort of brokedown, trust-fund baby named Graham Wilcox who used to travel but now she's poor and living in a giant loft in Brooklyn and eating Ramen and hanging baskets on the wall.
Oooooooooooookay.
She has the painter paint the room gray and then takes long strips of molding and attached them vertically to the wall. Oh yeah, she paints the molding yellow. All of the designers picked bland and boring paint colors. Did they never hear Kevin talk POP!!!
But the idea of the molding, and the floating shelves attached to each piece, was interesting. What wasn't interesting was the large silver L-bracket you could see beneath each shelf holding it up. Um, Meg? Perhaps some yellow paint on the brackets? Or, better still, get actual floating shelves and notch then around the moldings so you don't see the supports?
Just sayin'.
For her Camera Challenge, presented Live! on The Nate Show, Meg took an old coffee table, painted it gray, and then did some sort of loopy, swirly, squirrelly design on it. Seriously, she called it chic and modern, when it looked like something a seven-year-old might do. And then she goes all Beefy and The Beast and demands that the audience ooh and aah as she paints the table. Frightened, the audience submits.
But the judges loved the fact that Meg finally finished a room, on her own, and on time, and she gets the win.

Karl
He's mostly worried about the Camera Challenge since he's been a little off in that area. And he's even more afraid when he's told he'll be presenting Live! on The Nate Show. But his repurposing, or creating something a homeowner can do themselves, was a cool idea. He took store-bought, boxy shelves, stood them om end, and used actual books to make the book shelves. It was a cool ideas, and worked in his space, but would have looked better had there been more of them.
Still, his presentation, again, Live! on The Nate Show, went very smoothly and he generated oohs and aahs naturally, not through inti-Meg-ation.
His one mistake, other than more sad paint colors, was to take what looked like a bunch of paint stirrers and make them into a small dot of a clock along the biggest wall in the condo. It looked a little lonely.
But, because of his shelves and his Camera success, Karl gets a Second Place finish and some more tears.

Mark
Hottie Mark is at a loss. I so wanted to hug him, but then, i always want to snuggle a hot Latino. He gets all caught up in what to do for the Camera Challenge--to repurpose an item that a homeowner can do themselves--that he forgoes things like art. And design.
There's a lot of moving of furniture. A lot of painters painting. Some hanging of boxes all crookedy and crazy on the wall, and the purchase of some thrift store chairs that he could have painted some fabulous color and reupholstered as part of a, oh, i dunno, Camera Challenge.
Instead, he opts to silver-leaf a desk lamp because everyone can silver-leaf, right? I know.
Mark presents his Camera Challenge Live! on The Nate Show and gets all tongue-tied and nervous and calls silver-leaf tinfoil. i imagine a lot of bored housewives in some of the square states rushing to the kitchen for the Reynolds Wrap, and a hot glue gun, then cursing Mark when it doesn't turn out well.
Still, even with all his troubles--Hey! Maybe he should have gone woody and recycled wall art again!--Mark gets a save.

Kelly
She decides to create the condo space as if it were her own.
Mistake One.
I mean she's a suburban wife and mother, not your typical New Yorker. It'll be like Iowa in Brooklyn, and those two don't really mesh.
She buys rag rugs and then decides to use them to reupholster some stools. Ooh, never seen that before. Padding. Rug. Stool. Staple gun. Done. Très exciting.
Mistake Two.
And, in all her shopping, she forgets to buy window treatments for the one huge window that hits you in the face as you enter the space. So, she hangs table-cloths up there, and then places sheers behind them, and lower than them.
Mistake Three.
Her Camera Challenge, presented Live! on The Nate Show, was very clinical and dull. She must have said, two or three times, while holding up a rug, a stool a piece of foam, and a staple gun, "We've all seen these before." And we have, which made it a boring segment.
Mistake Four.
Out the door, Kelly. You've been cancelled.

Rants
I have a few.

This season is dull. Except for a few designs in the White Box Challenge there have been no Oh my god moments and no Wows. It's dull. And boring. And it's been seen before.

Genevieve Gorder is a moron with the design sense of dirt. I mean, the woman wore culottes and pumps last week, and is more high school girl giddy on TV than anything else.

Vern Yip is an annoying little queer who says things like "super interesting." The last time anyone said super interesting was in the 80s, and she was a high school girl. In fact, I think she was Genevieve Gorder.

Nate Berkus. I mean, come on, without Oprah, it's be Nate who? And his raves about Meg had me wondering: He's from Chicago. She's from Chicago. I sense a schoolyard reunion, where the bully is on a relaity show and the bullied one is a judge and too afraid the bully will take his lunch money again so he picks her as the winner.

And finally: Bring back Candice for crying out loud.

buh-bye, Kellie. You are out of this picture!

Design Star: Shotgun Wedding...Reception

So this week's challenge is to design a wedding reception space in twenty minutes. Okay, it's actually a two-day challenge, but, seriously, where's the fun in that? And this is a team challenge so all the designtestants have to work well together, and we know where that's headed. They are tasked with creating a fabulous, lush, elegant, Victorian reception, with a cool, jazzy retro groom's lounge. It should be fun. Or not.

Cathy let's us know instantly how this will be her big moment, saying, "I planned my own wedding so this challenge will come easy to me." Well, I heard she not only planned it, designed it, catered it, but she built the church and reception site from tissue paper and glue, and crafted a groom out of pipe cleaners and corks. She really is that good, y'all, because, as she says, again and again, "I designed my own wedding and it was in three national magazines."

Three? I'm thinking it was in Big Ego Monthly, Five-Time Emmy Award Winner's Periodical, and may have made an appearance in I Can Do Everything Myself And Make It Look Better Than Anyone Else Because This Is What I Do I'm So Good weekly.

But I digress, because this week was mostly about arguments and dysfunction.

The designtestants gather in the center of the loft to discuss space planning. Karl wants round tables. Cathy wants rectangle tables. A vote is taken. Round tables it is. Cathy whines that it should have been a group decision. Karl reminds her that is was: It's called voting, Cathy.

So, naturally, when the idea of placing the cake table in the middle of the dance floor arises, Cathy chimes in with another round of: "I designed my own wedding and it was in three national magazines"--I love that song--but is again voted off the island.

This won't be good, because in addition to holding all those Emmys, Cathy also holds a grudge very well.

Cathy and Leslie team up to shop for place settings and linens. Leslie will be doing the Guestbook Table, while Cathy will set all the tables and create her special Bam! Wow! moment at the Sweethearts Table.

But, while shopping, it's only Cathy who selects everything, and then gives us Oooh what's that smell look every time Leslie suggests something. It's Cathy's way, or the highway. because she's designed her own wedding and it appeared in three national magazines. You know.

Leslie's Guestbook Table was a crazy mess. She ordered a great Corinthian column table--which just screams Victorian--and then covered it with glitter fabric. She set a couple of lanterns on the floor--that screamed lighthouse--and set a pitiful flower arrangement on top. Lastly, she set a binder and a couple of Bic pens out for the guest to use when signing in. Tra.Gic.

Perhaps had Leslie been able to work without the constant nagging of Cathy [We've got to set the tables! We've got to set the tables!] she might have been able to reign in the cuckoo and unleash the lovely.

As for Cathy. Oh, Cathy. Her Sweetheart Table, her WOW moment, was a nightmare. There was no elegance, no specialness to it. It was a plain table, with some glitter fabric--albeit nicer glitter fabric than Leslie's--and the same china and stemware as all the other tables.

Plus, Cathy backed it up with a two-seater sofa for the bride and groom. Um, Cathy? Did you put down your Emmys long enough to look at the bride and groom? These were not small people, and yet that two-seater sofa looked like it would crowd a couple of Olsen twins.

Best Cathy Moment: When doing her camera challenge, she again stated that rectangle tables make for better conversation, yet she was surrounded by round tables. Oh Cathy.

Kevin, Karl and Mark were in  charge of the bar and lounge, and the groom's lounge as well. And this trio proved that Cathy isn't the only dysfunctional member of a team.

Kevin listened to the groom say he wanted a crooner's lounge, a Rat Pack lounge, with lots of wood elements. Karl, apparently listening to the voices in Cathy's head, wanted to do an all-white mod room, and when he saw that he was being drowned out, he opted to leave Kevin and Mark on their own.

Karl may be the new Cathy. This week they traveled the same MyWay Highway. Plus, other than his contribution to the bar and lounge, was a sad little flower arrangement in the Groom's Lounge. Still, gazing at those flowers did make me wanna guzzle bourbon by the keg, so maybe it was a good choice?

Mark takes on the lighting, which I think a lot of people take for granted, but it turned out to really make the space, and define the different areas. It added color and dimension to a big square room.

And Mark also listened to the groom say he liked to skateboard--Sidenote: what is it with grown-assed men skateboarding?--and so Mark rushed out last minute to buy a slew of skateboards and create a piece of wall art that bore more than a passing glance to a piece of wall art he created with rope a few challenges back. I mean, the skateboards looked cool, but, um, Mark, honey, handsome, we've seen it before from you.

Left to his own devices, Kevin ignores all of Karl's monochromatic suggestions for the groom's lounge and goes all retro on it's ass. Brown couch and chairs; amoeba coffee table; fabric barrel lamps. It looks absolutely nothing like the Victorian theme of the rest of the space, but it absolutely works. Kevin went big, big held back from going over the top.

Best Kevin Moment: Standing on a chair and singing, loudly, as Cathy repeated her credentials again, Three! Three magazines I've been in! Snarky, but fun.

Kellie and Meg were Team Play Nice. They agree on everything, and may soon appear on Saturday Morning TV as a couple of cartoon designing Chipmunks.

After you.
No, after you!

They were sent in search of fabrics, cake and flowers. Kellie wanted a beautiful, brightly colored canopy above the dance floor, so she and Meg visited a fabric store to find the perfect orange for their project. While Kellie comments on the color and the ruching--I pay attention to Project Runway--of the fabric, Meg hoists the entire bolt up onto her shoulder and grunts off in search of a register.  I suggest the title of her show, should she win, be Longshoremen Design.

Meg takes care of the flowers, and buys huge, clear vases for each table. it's a good plan, because then you'll be able to see across the table and chat up the fellow guest. But her lack of flower arranging skills is quite evident, and the finished product looks a little skimpy rather than grand.

Kellie's fabric canopy, on the other hand, looks wonderful and she gets proper credit for it. And she takes the credit, while also applauding Meg for her work-horse ethic and superhuman strength.
But, um, Kellie? You picked out the fabric. Meg carried it. But it was Karl who cut it, glued it to tubes, lined the tubes with wire, and stung the canopies over the dance floor. Your idea, dear, but Karl's execution. And no one would have known had he not spoken up.

Best Karl Moment: His shirt riding up every time he bent over. Boy loves his midriff baring T's and snug jeans. And by 'boy' I mean him, and me.

THE JUDGING

While there were hits and misses,  the bride and groom loved the room, and for having just about two days to bring it all together, the designtestants did an admirable job. Most of it looked chic--not Cathy's part--and a lot of it looked elegant--not Leslie's part--while some of it was just okay--Karl's sad Left At The Altar Flowers.

Special guest judge is former New Jersey Housewife, and new HGTV host, Dina Manzo. In the spirit of openness, I must reveal that I watched season one of The Real housewives of New Jersey and  I always wondered why Dina Manzo was there. She seemed normal, especially in that herd of crazy, and so I wasn't surprised when she opted out of season two. She turned out to be a good judge, full of compliments and suggestions and criticisms, like a judge should be.

Not full of illiterate platitudes like Genevieve Goiter, who couldn't design a sensible sentence if given two days. Or Vern Yip, who offers up new design terminology each week [this week's words: purposeful design] and prowls after the male contestants [this week's prey: Mark].

See, Vern said he was thrilled with Mark's progress each and every week. Apparently Vern forgot last week when Mark couldn't finish the backsplash tile, so he laid linoleum along one wall. Yeah, that's marked improvement. Keep it in your pants, Vern, it's a design show, not a Grindr account.

Still Mark got props for his skateboard, er, roper ladder, no, skateboard wall art. And he deserved recognition for the lighting  and his work in the lounge [Sidenote: i have an image of Mark's work in a male stripper lounge running though my head right now].
Mark gets the win, while fellow groom's lounger Kevin is also safe. Kellie gets saved for her sketch of the canopy, and Meg gets applause for her brute strength, leaving us a Bottom Three of Karl, Cathy and Leslie.

Leslie gets called out for the crazy. Genevieve says quirky is good, but design is serious, and she should know. She seriously schtupped an HGTV executive to get her show.

Karl gets called out for bad flowers in the groom's lounge. But I think it's more than just bad choices. Karl was scattered. Furniture. Flowers. Fabric hanging. He's a workhouse, though not in the same strong-armed vein as Meg, but he needs to step up and start designing. Otherwise both he and his jeans will be gone.

Cathy. Cathy.

Five times you won the Emmy.
Three times your work appeared in national magazines.
One time you get axed from  a reality show.

Your Sweethearts Table was less sweetheart and more high school cafeteria prom. Seriously, I've seen prettier tables as a Bus Station Taco Bell.

You're Out! And, if you need help with your suitcase of Emmys and your ginormous ego, ask Meg. She's a powerlifter.

Design Star: Someone's In The Kitchen With No Taste

It's back to the White Boxes for the designtestants, and I'm thinking they might be getting a do-over--which some of them sorely need--but this turns out to be the Dream Kitchen Challenge. They are tasked with turning a totally empty space into a Galley kitchen, an L-shaped kitchen, the U-shaped kitchen, and the Peninsula kitchen. And they are to design their kitchens in a certain style: Industrial, Farmhouse, Global, Contemporary, Traditional, Shaker, Tuscan and French Country.
Sidenote: why was Tanika Ray wearing a spa bathrobe? Did she have a mani-pedi scheduled after her intro? Bring.Back.Clive.
Anyway, the designtestants will be working in teams. Yes, one of those poor souls is doomed to work with Cathy.

Cathy and Karl

And that would be my boy with the good Jeans, Karl--and if you don't believe me, look how many times they get a rear-view shot of Karl bending over.....just sayin'--who has already suffered at the hands of First-We-Go-Shopping Cathy....Global perspective Cathy.
But then something odd happens, and Global Perspective Cathy wants to do a Contemporary Kitchen in the U-shaped design.
But Karl bucked up and decided to soldier on, and by soldier on, I'd hoped he meant go to war with the Ego That Is Cathy, but, sadly, that didn't happen. However, Karl was the first to notice that three of the four kitchens were being painted the same neutral green and suggested a change to orange. Cathy said No. Karl explained his reasons. Cathy said No. Karl bitchslapped Cathy and the Orange was on.
Cathy is an "I" designer. I want. I think. I need. Now, "You" do it.
Hits: Karl's Contemporary light fixture above the island and his tiled backsplash, and his win for changing the paint color. Cathy's Camera Challenge. So professional.
Misses: Cathy's styling, of which she says she's an expert. Every inch of counter space was covered with some kind of fruit or bread or potato or egg or urn or flower or vase. It looked like the Piggly Wiggly, only with better lighting, thanks to Karl. Also bad? Cathy's Camera Challenge. She's good, for a five-time-Emmy-award-winning reporter, but it comes off a little news segment-y. And now, back to the news. But she won for it, so, who am I?

Meg and Kevin

They chose Industrial Peninsula Kitchen; industrial, because, let's be honest, Meg loves wearing a tool-belt and Kevin is submissive.
They were one of the few teams to pick some vibrant color for their space, for which Mentor Bromstad--it sounds kinda Amish, right?--praised them. And they got the big industrial-sized appliances to create a lofty space.
I would have liked to have seen some concrete countertops and a stainless steel backsplash, but then i am sitting in a wing chair in Smallville, and not on TV.
Hits: Meg’s Pegboard Pots and Pans Wall, and Kevin's Tool Cart Desk Storage.
Misses: Kevin's messy staging of the desk area, and the stool that sat in front of the desk being too high to actually sit at the desk.

Kellie and Mark

They were doing the Country Galley Kitchen and were the two that really seemed to nail their look. And they worked well together until Mark suggested using the same Peel-and-Stick flooring as a backsplash, which sent Kellie into tears.
All in all the room was a hit. it looked like a country kitchen, even with two backsplashes.
Hits: Mark gets respect for his pendant light--though he could have removed the price-tags. Kellie gets bonus points for the table she chose, with the mismatched chairs and her Camera Challenge which, while it ended short, was personal.
Misses: Mark's mixed backsplash. He gets props for getting it done, but points off for the two different styles.

Leslie and Tyler

They went Global L-Shaped kitchen, but it was more of a Hell-shape. There were a lot of good ideas, which were never implemented, and a lot of bad ideas, which were everywhere.
The cork floor was a nice touch, both in terms of Global Perspective, and in terms of functionailty in a kitchen. But the zebra rug screamed obvious....obvioulsy wrong.
As in past years, the tiled backsplash was left unfinished, this year by Tyler.And the only place he put it was behind the stove, when, well, behind the sink is made for something called a backsplash. .
Hits: Leslie's clinky-clinky shell chandelier.
Misses: Tyler's Global Bench, which was pretty. Pretty small and out of place when set alongside such a massive table. And his Batik treatment of the wall was a miss. One of the judges said it looked like the remains of a wallpaper stripping project. and it did.

The Judging
Cathy wins the camera challenge, but gets knocked down--sadly, just figuratively--for her over-styling. She's safe.
But Kellie gets the win for her country charmer, which must be nice after last week's horrific painting project.
Mark gets saved, as does Karl, Leslie and Mister Meg, leaving us Kevin and Tyler in the bottom.
Kevin gets nailed for his messy desk, and the too tall desk chair. Genevieve Gorder makes a joke about having one inch thighs being the only way you can use that chair at that desk. She must have thought the comment so funny because she used it twice.
it wasn't. Just shut up.

Tyler gets called out for the odd purple bench and odd paint treatment. And then we are reminded that Kevin has been in the bottom more often than not, so, then it's Kevin going home, right?
Wrong.
It's Tyler. Which I found ridiculous because he's been consistently near the top, or at least safe, all season, while Kevin rises and falls like Genvieve's IQ--well, it mostly falls, but I was in need of a metaphor so I stretched.
This makes me think they have already picked a winner, and will just keep around the people who make a good show. Kevin's queeny and campy and funny , while Tyler was just a nice guy with good taste.
Oh wait. Nice.Guys.Finish.Last. Or, at least, eighth.

Rant
I'm sort of annoyed by the guest judges. I mean, the Queer Eye guy was good, but Kathy Ireland is just a brand, and then they haul out Paula Deen. I mean, unless you were gonna slather the designerss in butter and deep fry them ,why would you bring Paula Deen on? Y'awwwwwwwwwwllll?
Also, where the eff is Candice?
She's always off working on her show which means she's actually a working designer, while Itty-Bitty and Mindnumbingly Dumb are always on the show. We never hear about Vern having to take the week off to design, or Genevieve needing time off for...for...whatever.
But the show needs a designer judge.
It's design, people.
Oy!

Design Star: That Shore Is Ugly

So this week the designtestants were driven to the shore, their hands and feet cemented, and their bodies dropped off a pier.
I kid. I wish.
Their task was to redesign four rooms in a large Bed-and-Breakfast, updating the space, yet maintaining that warm and cozy B-and-B at the shore vibe. They were broken up into teams, like this:

Cathy and Kevin

It was a replay of what happened last week. Cathy goes to shop and then bitches about doing any physical work. He "special project" was to have a handyman buy molding, cut molding and hang molding. Bitch broke a sweat on that one.....barking out orders.
But Kevin was no better. Telling us he's never whitewashed a floor before, he decided to white wash a floor. And does so without even sanding the floors first, to maybe, oh, I don't know, take off that top coat of dirt and varnish so the whitewash can adhere to something. The paint had scarcely dried when the scuff marks showed up.
Cathy doesn't work with others, and even admitted as much, again to the judges, so why is she still there? She's bossy and arrogant and full of herself. She snapped at Kevin after she ordered him to call a store about a chair, and then tells us she has no words to describe what it was like working with him.
I bet he has a word for her!
Hits: Kevin's headboards he built to resemble the four-paneled doors.
Misses: Cathy's handyman moldings, which were hung too low, and didn't actually go all the way around the room.

Kellie and Bret

This was a disaster from the get-go. They decide that in this rustic, century-old rambling B-and-B that the room needs to be modern and monochromatic, because that screams warm and cozy and beachy.
In Miami....not the Jersey Shore.
Kellie's big contribution was buying a yellow bird chair, which again makes me wonder: is design just buying stuff? Or is it creating stuff? Like the artwork Kellie created for the room that looks like Tuxedo rolled in paint and then took a long stretchy catnap on a piece of canvas. People always look at modern art and say 'My kid can do better than that' but in this case, my cat could have been more creative.
Bret, hoping to stay in the show, needed a big wow moment, and he found it by removing the padding from the old headboard,  cutting the plywood into squares, nailing them to a wall and then painting them white. Cozy. Not.
Hits: That yellow chair, which leas me to believe the show should be calling Shopping Star.
Misses: Pathetic artwork and that horrifically uncomfortable headboard.

Leslie and Tyler

Their room actually turned out very nicely, and stayed true to a more home-style inn. Leslie took a set of area rugs, turned them over, painted a graphic design on the back, and then hung then on the wall as textural art. It looked so simple and easy, and turned out very cool. I may be joining Team Lesliebian.....um, you know, on the show. Just on the show.
Tyler repaired a couple of wicker chairs, with new pads and fabric, then painted stripes on the back. It was cute, but not nearly as impressive as Vern Yip made it out to be.
It was a redone chair, Vern, not the second coming.
The room was nice, and the owner's liked it, but there was no wow, no excitement. No modern touches. It was just repainted, rebedded, redone. Kind of sad.
Hits: Leslie's art and Tyler's ooooooh chairs.
Misses:Tyler decided to faux the fireplace. Yes. Faux. Even he couldn't sell it.

Karl, Mark and Meg

AKA Three Men and a Guest Suite.
They were teamed in three because they had the biggest space to design. Some gargantuan barnlike room with two big beds and a leather porn couch. There were lots of opportunities, but the three of them never came up with a plan or a concept or an idea. They just went shopping, and argued about blinds and lamps and working together.
But then, the aha moment came, when they entered the last store and found couches and knickknacks and....stuff. Suddenly they were all filled with ideas. And mutual respect and admiration for one another. Bluebirds sang.
Meg took one of the bedroom nooks and really worked it out. There was great color and great fabric, and it looked like a comfy cozy beachy inn.

Still, she's kinda nutty. In describing her fabric, and picture yourself as the client to whom she's speaking, said, and I quote: "I'm going to upholster the headboard in an outdoor whimsy nautical thing with sort of a vintage fun punchy floral."
She crammed every designer cliche into one sentence.
But at least it was design. Mark made a rope sculpture. He called it a ladder, but, honey, it was rope. Karl reverted to his need to paint and created a painted chair rail effect that mimicked the beach and sea and sky. It was cool, but Karl is just a painter. Oh, and a magician apparently, because he sawed a table in half and made it into two tables!~
Hits: Meg's nook, Mark's laddery-sculpture, and Karl's border.
Misses: The judges found none but I'd say Mark's laddery sculpture.

The Judging
Tiny Tot and the Schlockmeister were joined by Kathy Ireland, who was introduced as though she was the Design Star,m when she's just a former model who stamps her name on everything from sheets to glassware and is called a designer.
They made quick work of dispensing their verdict. The three men, Karl, Meg and Mark, won, with Meg getting top honors. Meg celebrated with some scotch, a cigar, and a hooker.
Leslie and Tyler get a save, as does Kellie and her artwork. Cathy The Shopper gets an other week of not doing what the show is about, which leaves us with Bert and Kevin--last week's winner--in the boot.
And Bret gets booted for his headboard, and for his lack of showing them who is is as a designer, like Cathy did with her shopping and Kellie did with her shopping.
Bert should'a gone shopping........

Design Star: Make A Client Happy Or Die

THE CHALLENGE
This week was the Work-With-Actual-Clients Challenge and give some rooms in their house new life. Our designtestants were split into two teams, driven to New Jersey where design is king....I kid...and dropped off on some residential street. I'd hoped they'd be forced to design their way back to Brooklyn, but alas, that wasn't this episode.
Team Callegari

Leslie, Kevin and Kellie took the Callegaris' basement to task, while Doug and Mark did battle--literally--in the living room. The Callegaris wanted a living room to suit their large family gatherings [sidenote:everybody on these design shows always talks about wanting rooms in which they can entertain, but if everybody is entertaining so much, where are my invites??] and we learned almost instantly that Doug and Mark, or as I call them, Oil and Water, or to be more current, JLo and Marc Anthony, would not be a team.

Mark and Doug's lack of teamwork and bickering was obnoxious, and Doug was especially obnoxious, mostly because he wasn't listening to my Little Hairy Hubby, Mark. And, to be fair, Mark was a little preoccupied doing one wall in the space while Doug tackled everything else.
Their lack of cohesion turned the living room into a joke. The Callegaris wanted space to dance, so Doug shoved all the furniture against the wall, because, you know, people can't move furniture once its in place. And he decided to do one of his signature feature walls and painted it the color of Pepto Bismol; I know this, because I was watching the show whilst drinking Pepto and it was exactly the same shade!

The best part of their collaboration was the rug moving incident. It should be capitalized: The Rug Moving Incident. Mark wanted it closer to wall and did so; Doug wanted it more centered do he pulled it back. Mark moved it, Doug moved it. It was a Battle Of [nit]Wits.
Sad to say, it wasn't the rug that destroyed their room. It was the hideous paint color, the ugly furniture, and the bad space design--look at me, i sound like a life-sized Vern Yip--and a total lack of team work.

On the other hand, Leslie, Kevin and Kellie’s basement was very cool, and they played well with others. Leslie told us that she has a wife, which means she is a, yes, Lesliebian, and used her Mommy skills to make the basement a very kid-friendly zone, by taking the kid's art work and making a collage for one wall. It was cutesy, and I don't like cutesy, but the Callegaris do, so that was okay.

Kevin’s take on the family office corner that was cool, not cutesy. His shelving design was very well done--and I may try it in our home office--and, though he went kitschy, as is his style, with the accessories--seriously, a grouping of little ceramic Eskimo women?--he downplayed the tackiness of kitschy and kept it cool.
Kellie took a pair of structural columns and turned it into a seating bar-storage cabinet-room-divider. It made the room into three zones: kid, office, and family, and really brought all three designers and their designs together.

Team Christina
Tyler and Meg tag-teamed the dining room, while Cathy, Bret and Karl were butting heads, and headaches, in the basement entertainment room.

Cathy, Karl and Bret were the Odd Trio. Cathy obviously doesn't think a designer should get her hands dirty, so she went out shopping while Karl and Bret did demolition derby to the space. They removed the kitchen, she bought a table. They tore down a wall, she found the perfect lamp. They built a tree fort, she had an espresso.
By Day Two, the boys weren't having it and, after a short squabble, where Cathy said she could go shopping with Karl and Bret, Bret simply said, 'We'll shop and Cathy will stay here and paint.' Cathy was not happy doing actual work. I believe she leaves manual labor to her Mexican handyman, Manuel Labore.

Their room had highs and lows. Karl's broken tile mosaic backsplash was very cool, even though no one noted that in almost every season of Design Star the Work With Clients Challenge ends with a backsplash left unfinished. Until this year. That was a high point.
Bret’s  little vignette next to the kitchen was a low point. Bad furniture, badly placed does not a designer make. It could have been the perfect spot for a bistro table and a couple of chairs, and maybe some kind of wine storage. Something that made you wanna sit down instead of walk by.
And Cathy, dear sweet Emmy-award winning Cathy. Shopping is not design. Say it with me: Shopping is not design, because if it were, we'd all be designers. I didn't see her do any design work whatsoever, and her whole time was spent showing how she could shop for her Global Perspective. Design! Dammit! Or take those Emmy wings and fly your ass back home,. Oh, yeah.....do some grunt work, too. Lazy bitch.

Tyler and Meg’s dining room went all Hampton-y, beachy and fun. Tyler did a wood technique on one wall, but did anyone else notice that he walled over a sink and a niche with his wood? I mean, it may have been the fever, but I could have sworn I saw him walling up a sink! And I kept thinking he was going to cut out the spaces, but when it was all said and down, he just covered it up. If I was Christina, i would have been all, Where's my sink, gay boy?

And Meg, Bruiser Meg, Scared To Meet Her In A Dark Alley, Meg, repurposed a hutch into a buffet, which she did by taking the top off, sanding it, and repainting it. That really isn't repurposing; that's dismantling, sanding and painting. if you wnated to repurpose the hutch, you could have turned it into a sink, since Tyler lost the sink behind a wall. That would have been remarkable.
And while their room was pretty, it looked an awful lot like a vignette at a Rooms-To-Go showroom, where you can buy all the pieces for $999.00. And then you get it home and find out there's a sink hidden behind the wall.

CAMERA CHALLENGE
Once again we spent several valuable minutes on the camera challenges, only to have them disappear and never be seen again. But, oh, what we learned....
Meg showed us how to sand, while Tyler gave us nail-gun tips. Bret patched a hole while Karl showed us how to paint a crisp line using tape. Cathy sewed...badly...apparently her seamstress was off that day, while Lesliebian matted photos. Kellie created a drip hole in a paint can--though I will admit I'm gonna try this one--while Kevin covered holes, which is different than patching. Mark showed us how to cut in while painting while Doug talked about carpet removal.
Soooooo challenging.
Such helpful tips.

THE JUDGING
Kevin, Kellie, and Leslie's basement family room was called fun. The kid art collage got points for bringing some of the family into the room, and Kellie's bar wall was a hit. But the judges loved Kevin's desk area most of all, and said that this room seemed like the designers were of one mind, and that it was a good mind.

Not so was Doug and Mark's room. The judges loved the floor, and Mark's wood wall, but Doug's taste level in furniture was deemed unfortunate. Genevieve Goiter hated his paint choice, and I......a......greed. Which means I must have really been sick, or it was a really bad paint color, or both.
Both.
Tyler and Meg's dining room got wows, but also got knocked for looking too showroom. Hey! I already said that! They also got knocked because there was no family in the room. it could have been anyone's dining room; well, not mine, because I would'a looked at the wood wall, and screamed, a la Joan Crawford: Tear down that bitch of a wood wall and put a sink where a sink ought to be.
And......................................................scene.
Karl, Cathy and Bret got points for their beautifully designed, if bland, room. Vern hated Bret's "Cappuccino machine waiting area" chairs--look, Vern made a funny--and they all called Cathy's furniture selection boring, except for the Global perspective coffee table. Karl's backspalsh was a winner. Like I said.

YOUR SHOW IS CANCELLED
Sister Cathy of the Clean Hands and Boring Furnishings Order was safe, as was Showroom Meg and Tyler. The Lesliebian was also safe, probably as an homage to NY Marriage Equality.

Karl gets the Second Place finish for his backspalsh, while Divider, Not Divisive Kellie takes Third. But the winner is Kevin, for his kitschy, cool office space. And Kevin also gets the award for Subtlest Dig at the hosts for saying, only to guest judges Cortney and Bob Novogratz, "This means so much, especially coming from you."
I guess it wouldn't mean as much coming from Vern Little and Genevieve Goiter.
Bret is then awarded a safety, leaving Mark, my Hot Hairy Hubby in my Head, and Doug as the Bottom Two.

Mark gets nailed--and not in a good way--for not speaking up and not being a team player, and focusing on one aspect of the room. But it's Doug whose Show Is Cancelled, Doug who Packs His Swatches And Goes, Doug who is Auf'd, Doug who is voted Out Of The Condo.
And he should have been. Even he noted that he had done 98% of that room,. Though he also noted that meant he shouldn't have gone home. But, um, Doug, if ninety-eight percent of the room is ugly, should you stay?
Doug?
Doug?
Dougie boy?
Oh, that's right. You're gone.
You are out of this picture.

Design Star: The One With The BJ.....And By That I Mean, Bye J

THE CHALLENGE
This week it was the always exciting White Box Challenge, where the designtestants are called up to take an ordinary white room, with some nondescript white furniture, and turn it into something fun and wacky and wild, and, really, not at all functional. In fact, they were practically ordered to stay away from functionality.
Think outside the White Box, if you will. And some of our designtestants did just that, and others put themselves in the box, labeled it, stamped it, and mailed it to Boringtown USA.
Forcing the designers to rethink their design aesthetic, they were told they could only shop for supplies at a restaurant supply warehouse. Floor mats, soup pans, spices. Those were just some of the tools they would be using.
Let's Dish.....

MEG

She starts off by telling us she hasn't designed a non-functional room in eons. Makes me wonder, who would hire a designer to create a room they cannot use? And then who would hire a bulldog like Meg. I'd be afraid she pummel me if I didn't like her work.
And she plays it safe, by creating a living space with salmon pink walls and weird green pathways running to a bureau and a couch. When David Bromstad comes by to mentor her--and, well, grrrrl needs some mentoring--he says she's playing it too safe.
If you're told you can get crazy, then get crazy. But criminologist Meg's idea of crazy is two Boilermakers after work. After David leaves, she lumbers through the salmon space in fear, and I don't blame her. But she then does what she does best. She breaks out the cheeseballs.
She paints the cheeseballs green. She doesn't eat them, but she does tell us she'd rather eat them, and that it's a waste to paint them. I say it's a waste either way. But then she gets one cool idea, perhaps from being surrounded by a sea of green, inedible cheeseballs.
She takes coffee grounds and uses them to cast shadows from the furniture along the walls. This is a cool idea in a roomful of mediocre cheese....balls.
Meg then removes the legs from the desk to make a coffee table! How avant-garde! Repurposing a desk as a shorter desk. She uses green painted stemware as the legs, but makes the mistake of not securing the desk/coffee table to the glasses. Uh.......oh. Tjis doesn't bode well.
And, as the clock ticks down the final seconds, Meg runs into her space like a bull in a badly decorated china shop and knocks over that table. As time is called, Meg hoists the table over her head, a la King Kong, and murmurs, 'Seriously/"

LESLIE

She's going over the top! Go big or go home!
She's gonna bust out the....cliches.
At the warehouse store, she grabs floor mats to create wall art, and bags of beans to make a soup. I think. She doesn't have any real ideas, but keeps telling us the room will be all Leslie.
In her space, she begins to write words, er, scribble words, along the all that describe herself. See, rather than showing the judges who she is, she's gonna make 'em read about her. She's a designer! Really? She's an artist! Do tell! She's a fighter. Say what?
She takes the chairs and turns them into chairs! The futon becomes a futon!
Tinfoil is art!
And teal is a good color.

CATHY

Instantly she decides to go with functionality and create a living space. For a former Emmy-award-winning news reporter, she doesn't pay close attention to detail.
At the restaurant supply store she loads up on white dinnerware and spices of all kinds. She's either creating a dining room, or dinner, and if it's dinner she needs to move on over to the Next food Network Star. She shatters the plates and begins to create a mosaic tabletop, whilst reminding us that she has a global perspective and is a world-traveler, and broken china and spice blends will be winging us to Barcelona.
Doesn't she know it's pronounced Barth-a-lona?
In the Camera Challenge, where they must show how they repurposed something from the restaurant supply store, Cathy coldly and clinically tells us how she mosaics a table top and how we can all do it in an afternoon for a 'bit of that Spanish influnce'.
For more Spanish influence, she peppers the floor with spices. Chili powder tiles, if you will. Cumin tiles. Paprika, too.
Cathy is too on the money, too, "Let me make a room" She has not spice of her own.

TYLER

He enters his space, and instantly tosses out the chairs, the end tables, the desk, the dresser, the lamp, and the futon, but he keeps the futon cover. Someone has an idea!
Which will include some metal mixing bowls and 400 bottles of water. He's one of the few designers who is embracing the chance to go cray-zay.
For his Camera Challenge Tyler busts out the metal mixing bowl, drills a hole it, shoves in a light kit and, voila!, lamp!
He paints a big splash, literally, along the walls and floor and then turns his 400 water bottles into a piece of furniture, draped by a futon cover. Good enough, i think, but then he sets a light under it and the whole things glows.
The room is playful and fun, and not functional.
It's chic and urban and cool and fantastic. And I want one.

KELLY

She has no idea what she's doing whatsoever. While shopping she is just grabbing anything and everything, with no clear focus or direction,. I see a direction: headed for D-I-saster.
After shopping, she unloads her supplies in her space but still has no idea what she's going to do, or how she'll use anything she bought. D-I-saster.
But she does want everyone who walks by her box to recognize it as Kelly's box.......crickets..........there's a joke there somewhere but when it has to do with ladybits, I just don't get it.
But she comes through in the Camera Challenge by taking mixing bowls, pizza pans and salt and pepper shakers and turning it into a side table. But, as David tells her? The way she speaks? In all those questions? Makes her sound unsure of herself? And her design?
With good reason. It had some cool parts. The dripping can of paint artwork that spilled on the floor. That was cool.
Okay, that was it.

KEVIN

The Pop'o'Color King, er, Queen, wants to be chic, and, for him, nothing screams chic like a roll of brown butcher paper.
But then he shreds the paper and wrinkles the paper and staples it to the wall to create this very organic, textural wall covering, and I'm thinking how to I get Carlos to let me do this in the guest room....
And then he takes mop heads and creates these beautiful shag rugs around the room. From mop heads. Excuse me while I talk to Carlos.....
But Kevin upped his game this week, and went from the kitschy end of kitschy chic all the way to the chic end. That butcher-paper wall was great, the mops were great, but they kind of overshadowed the rest of his space. If he had gone wack-a-doodle with his furniture, he might have been Top Three.

BRET

He decides that since graffiti artists are sometimes called bombers, though I have never heard the term from my graffiti artist cohorts. He plans on painting literal bombs along the back wall of his space. Bret is nerdy gay cute, so I hope his bombs aren't too literal.
For his Camera Challenge Bret busts out the soup pot, drills a hole it, shoves in a light kit and, voila!, lamp! I may have seen this before.
He has turned his room, with the bomb-dropping wall graphic, into some kind of industrial chic space, that he accessorizes with bowl s of Granny Smith apples and red bell peppers.
Reall Bret? The only person who uses Granny Smith apples as decoration is Granny Smith herself.
That was a bad call. he should have made a pie and served it to the judges. Maybe then he would have earned Extra Cedit.

DOUG

He's the man with the plan and he gets his shopping done in record time, and then stands around the cash register watching the other designers scurry like rats. He waers a sly grin, but I'm not sure he any reason to be smiling.
Back in his space, he tells us he was doing graffiti when graffiti was cool, and then proceeds to plagiarize Keith Haring by painting Keith Haring all over the room. Apparently his style of graffiti is the stealing kind.
So, after ripping off Haring, Doug decides his room needs a bit of whimsy and begins gluing and hammering silver plates against a black wall because he loves how silver pops off black walls.
Literally. The plates are a'poppin' off'a the walls, and it doesn't scream whimsy at all.
It screams desperate and safe, though it's the only part of the room that doesn't scream Haring.

KARL

He really does look good in jeans. Just sayin'.
He buys a boatload of plastic to-go containers and tries to hot glue them into a chandelier. But on Day 2, he still has no color on his walls. I guess building a plastic chandelier out of take-out salad bowls is a day long task. Note to self: don't do that.
Karl color blocks the walls, and the paints the furniture exactly the same to blend in with his walls. I like how the furniture seems to blend in to the walls and floor. it's cool, and not that easy to accomplish, but I find it more amusing than greats.
Still, he does have those jeans.

MARK

His inspiration for his room comes from his grandfather, and the years he spent in the military. he's going to paint a mural, and build a plane, and give it guns. And then, I'm hoping, fly it over to Bret's box, grab some bombs, and then head to Cathy's box, and drop them on Barth-a-lona. Or, as I soon call Cathy's box: Barf-a-lona.
For his Camera Challenge Mark busts out the metal mixing bowl, drills a hole it, shoves in a light kit and, voila!, lamp! Seriously. Is this all you people can do?
But he's painted this incredible Air Force insignia mural on the wall, and the uses the futon to simulate wings. He paints bottle silver and they become guns, and the whole thing floats above the ground on a bed of upturned mixing bowls. Where was Mark when I was playing war with my neighborhood kids? But, then again, where was Mark when I was discovering my sexuality?
But that's another show for another network.
His salute to his grandfather was very cool, and still very sweet. He used his design to really tell a story about himself, and he did it beautifully.

J

She immediately begins to complain about how she is being given nothing, when, in fact, she's been given free reign, which you would think might make a designer ecstatic.
Not so much.
Out shopping, she buys Sterno, or as she calls them, chafing gels--which is something I think one might use for those itchy between-the-legs rashes--and black beans. Back at her space, she tips over two end tables, pushes them together and calls it a fireplace. Really.
When David views her space, she tells him the firebox....with the chafing gels and the black beans....will create a 'nice' moment. David bitchslaps her and tells her that 'nice' moments don't get their own TV shows!
Honey! We don't do nice!!
So she goes all wacky by tin-foiling a table and then hanging bottles of parsley to along the wall. O, J!
 That doesn't say nice! That says I've ruin out of ideas and I should give up right now!

THE JUDGING
Guest judge this week--for the missing Candice Olson--was Thom Filicia, who looked like he could have used the Queer Eye guys to get his 'hur' did. But worse than his hair was Genevieve Gorder in leopard. I mean leopard is so 20..........................05. And Vern is still teensy.
But I digress.
The judges found Doug's room more of a Keith Haring room. and showed none of Doug, at all. They loved Karl's light, but GG wants him to do something other than really great paint techniques. Really? A designer shouldn't paint? Was she hoping he'd crochet the walls, or make a soup? What? This woman is daft.
She loved Kevin's paper wall and mop rugs, and they all liked Bret's bunker chic room, although the fruit garnish seemed a little Martha Stewart to Thom Filicia. Careful Thom, I think Martha learned how to make a shiv out of a Granny Smith, and she'll cut a bitch.
As they step in front of J's room, they all utter 'Oh no.' And Meg's room gets a group, 'Uh oh' before GG calls it creepy. Vern nearly dies when he sees Tyler's room and it's all he can do not to grab a ladder and climb up on the H2O bottle chaise. Luckily, GG has him on a child leash and he stays put. Thom says his room is powerful without a lot of embellishment.
At Leslie's space, Vern wants more. He wants the graffiti to cover all the walls. GG says her head keeps pingponging from one graffiti wall to the other, but I think it's just a fan in the room bouncing her empty head back and forth.
GG loves Mark's "bold and playful" use of color. We know this because she whipped out her handy, Tried And Trite Designer Word Handbook to tell us so. It comes right after "Pop of color". I found it interesting that she like his "b&P" use of color, but then lamented Karl's "B7P" usage earlier.
Proves she's schtupping someone high up to be on TV.
In Kelly's room, they like the pizza pan table, and the set of pink footprints, and not much else. That's because there isn't much else. In Cathy's room they call her conventional.

THE EVALUATION
Karl, Bret, Kelly, Doug, and Leslie  are safe, only because, as GG points out in her blank-eyed cheerleader style, they played it safe. This coming from her is, for me, the most high-larious line of the week.
The Judges then critique the remaining six designers, and this week also take the Camera Challenge into co0nsideration.
Mark gets props--Get it? props? propellers? The Air Force room? Props? I'll stop--for his design and for his presence on camera, but not for his "Mixing Bowl Becomes A Light" .
J is called scattered on camera, and wordy on camera. And she's told she just doesn't seem interested in her design. How could she be? it was awful.
Tyler gets called out for his "Mixing Bowl Becomes A Light...Been There Done That" design tip. But he gets praise for his beautiful room. GG goes all mumblemumblemumble meh mumblemumblemumble stepped it up. Whatever that means.
Meg appears angry, like she's ready to charge the table and use Vern as a toothpick to remove some leftove cheeseballs from her incisors. But then she cries when they say her room was creepy and it's spooky, and altogether ooky.
Kevin gets high marks for chic, and he's funny and relaxed in his camera challenge though GG thinks he's a shouter. I say, Hey! At least he makes sense.
Cathy is called cold, with no personality, just like her room. There was no inspiration and she seemed to take the challenge too literally. GG hand gestures and says Blibbety blah blay blue which is Moron for I have no idea what I'm doing here..
In the end, Mark wins over Tyler--and I think Tyler was robbed--although Mark's smile soon makes me think, Tyler who?
Kevin gets saved, and Cathy, Meg, and J are on the bottom.
J gets sent packing because she seems to have no interest in design, and no desire to share her non-interesting design.
BJ.
Bye J.