"Was there any question, really, people? Seriously." — Matt.No, Matt, no indeed. Both his and Carisa's final projects were gorgeous and inspired personal visions. But Matt dependably exuded his polished, sophisticated and serene self — an aesthetic that's a bit older and more refined than Carisa's, and a better match with the tastes of Elle Decor's Margaret Russell. Though Todd told them they'd have two months for this challenge, let's be honest: They really only had five days. Two months of conceptualizing and formulating a plan and phoning the PDC, yes, but five days to install flooring, walls, paint, furniture, kitchen cabinets and appliances, curtains, etc, throughout a 1,700-square-foot loft in downtown Los Angeles. Two months later and three days away from the deadline, both found themselves over budget at the PDC and behind schedule back at their respective lofts, despite the added carpenters (did you see Sarah?) and crew. Both finalists chose black floors that look...
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Oh, Matt, don't scare me like that! Why that momentary crisis of confidence? I was quite surprised he wasn't more gung-ho about tonight's task. Granted, designing a high-end living room inspired by an Elle Decor cover for $7,500 total was a tall order. Still, chic luxury is his shtick and he's succeeded with a limited budget several times in this game. And surely he knows how to spell "Los Angeles." Clearly, the pressure was finally getting to him.Indeed, by the end of the second day, every member of the Design trinity had pulled a Goil/Jan Brady by freaking out over some aspect of the challenge. Carisa made a biting but hilarious crack about Andrea's wall color ("nothing says happy like gray"), and suddenly Andrea realized she'd wasted time and effort (not to mention some embroidering) painting her room's gray walls with another horribly neutral shade of gray. Carisa's drama centered on her carpenter (as usual), as they bickered over divergent visions of the back wall's stone aesth...
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Opening tonight's show with a trip to the Viceroy Hotel to see Kelly Wearstler's handiwork was evidence that while her sense of taste may be lacking on her person, it's not half bad when adapted for walls and furniture. But there wasn't much Wearstler worship before the contest's final four focused on their latest task: Design a luxury hotel suite for a high-end/boutique hotel that incorporates a natural element. (Each randomly chose between earth, air, water or fire.)With three days (positively lengthy for this show), Goil still had his weekly nervous breakdown, and Carisa was pouting yet again (though with an added cocky smirk, I noticed). Andrea's verbal claws were sharper this round, talking a little trash about her competition and bemoaning her assigned "earth" element. As for Matt — please, someone just give him this competition already! He quietly designs sleek, cohesive high-end visions, and the nice lad works well with others, too. His focus shifted entirely to his ca...
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Good news and bad news. Good news: an individual challenge. And Michael is finally gone! While he has accomplished a lot by the tender age of 23, and learned to get his hands dirty, he needs someone else to pick out the colors and fabrics on his future projects. That was positively the ugliest rug I've ever seen (and I've been through many airports).Bad news: Matt's (lack of) favor with the judges. What is their problem with him? How could they have chosen Andrea as the challenge winner? Hers was elegant and loved the stone walls, but still.... OK, more on that later.Now down to five very unique designers, TD departed from home/garage design and opted for restaurants. The assignment was to create a private chef's room/table for a mystery chef client that would combine his or her affinity for nature, arts and crafts, mid-20th-century aesthetics, handmade and sleek cuisine, and upscale ingredients. Oh, and high-end luxury, courtesy of a $40,000 budget to pillage the Pacific Design Cen...
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Unfortunately for this group, even the prospect of a party leads to turmoil. (Of course, they might've had more fun if they'd been able to celebrate afterward with their own party and some of that Bacardi.) But team challenges among these unique, strong-willed designers who are used to working independently and who are stubbornly loyal to their visions only yield a lot of angst. (And all this conflict comes even though Ryan has left the building!)Once the six remaining contenders were divided into two teams and attempted to work together designing an upscale "sensorial" bash for Bacardi Limon more product placement, we were subjected to a hefty dose of bickering, complaining, he-said/she-said, idea stealing, bossing, ignoring, eye rolling, even crying. (Thanks, I didn't get enough of that earlier tonight.) In fact, in the first half hour, nearly every comment was some kind of gripe and neither team seemed to agree on design, execution, time management, order of projects.... No one...
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Hey Design groupies, I'm on vacation this week (sunny California), so I'm leaving the blogging to you. Since I often find myself agreeing (and laughing along) with your comments and assessments (e.g., Kelly Wearstler's crimped hair, etc), I'm looking forward to hearing/reading your thoughts. I'll be back for the March 14 episode.For further inspiration, click here to find the show's website, which has oodles of videos, blogs, polls and other Design-DIY goodies.
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Yay! This show is getting more interesting, as we learn more about the players and as the challenges heat up. Going into tonight's episode, I knew Ryan and Carisa would have to step up their game in order to avoid Jonathan Adler's "See you later, decorator!" line (which I think is so lame, by the way, but that's just my teensy opinion). I thought tonight's challenge tested the designers on many levels. It looked as though they were each assigned their client, as opposed to them randomly choosing for whom they'd create a live/work space. Once the contestants started brainstorming with their respective clients (themselves interior-design students), the reason for such purposeful assignments seemed clear: Since many of the clients had similar taste and style to their designated designer (or "mini-me's" as Felicia explained), I had to wonder whether this setup was an opportunity to get a better idea of each designer's unique style, and not limit them with client (or destination, as in l...
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Though team challenges don't offer us much insight into each designer's unique tastes and talents, they sure supply lots of verbal sparring, stubborn individuality and bruised egos. In tonight's venture, teams of three set out to create a beach cabana that incorporated the mood and sensibility of a specific sunny destination. The various grievances seemed to result from each team member overseeing furnishings, fabric or hardware/construction. Elizabeth on the Miami team said the city had a specific color palette, but they were "in agreeance to" infuse different colors and create "a respite" from the typical Miami milieu. Matt didn't seem to agree with the purple and yellow/green colors but chose to keep his mouth shut. Erik wasn't too worried; he had immunity from winning last week's challenge.No team seemed to have to struggle to stay within budget, but all suffered under time constraints. After making designs and purchases, Todd Oldham revealed a new twist: teams had to completely...
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There is a really good reason that John and Michael fought so much in the last episode: They are both equally strong-willed and stubborn. You thought I was going to say something else, didn't you? Well OK, yes, within the first few minutes of tonight's episode, John announced to his fellow contestants that he's HIV-positive. After working 48 hours alongside teammate Michael, during which each became livid toward the other, John explained that, prior to joining the show, he had received a high dosage of testosterone as part of his treatment. He added that he wasn't making excuses, but clearly he was attributing his aggressive behavior in part to the medication. But his disclosure didn't have (and won't have) tremendous ramifications in terms of drama because A) this is 2007 and we've learned a lot since the days of Pedro on The Real World, B) this show is serious about design, C) tonight we saw both of them being confrontational, having the gall to argue with the judges and tell them...
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Hi there, Designer groupies. Sabrina Rojas Weiss is taking over theLost blog, and I'm going to head up this one. As she confessed in the last Top Design blog entry, I too have an apartment decorated courtesy of IKEA — and myriad mismatched items nabbed from Manhattan sidewalks. But I'm a big fan of Bravo's Project Runway, so I'm hoping for some similarly creative and fun competition and looking forward to this Wednesday!
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