Design Star: Glass Houses

Oh, it's Final Three! Final Three!

Which makes me happy because this season of Design Bore is almost over. And not a moment too soon. Now, before I get to this week, I wanna rant about the show:

Genvieve Gorder? A Judge? She has the talent of a flea and the personality to match. I haven't heard her utter one sentence, much less one word, that was inspiring, creative or thoughtful. Bring it, she said once. Wow! What a designer.
And exactly whom does Vern Yip have under his thumb to be named Head Judge. Where is his HGTV show? It seems every year they give him another new show to do, which says to me that no one likes the shows he's done in the past.
Candice Olson is the only designer who is truly creative, and we get to see that week to week on her own show,. And she always had constructive criticism for the designtestants.
Note to HGTV: Dump Genveive from your entire lineup, and put Vern in her
purse so he can go, too. Next season have Candice, David Bromstad, and maybe
that guy from Curb Appeal: The Block. At least then we'd hear something
meaningful from the judges.
Second Note to HGTV: Dump these collaborative, food as inspiration, art as
inspiration, bread baskets as inspiration, souvenirs as inspiration challenges. If these designtests are supposed to show how they can design and host their own show, have them do their own designs. All this group work was a trainwreck.

Anyway, back to the show.

Michael announces that he is the Last man standing, while Emily says May the best woman win. Either sentence refers to Michael, but that seems lost on them as there is no time to celebrate or pretend to be excited. The next challenge is upon them.

And it's a single challenge, meaning that, finally, they'll be creating their own spaces without the help of any other designers, or without having to choose a grocery bag of goodies for their inspiration.
Genevieve introduces us to last season's winner, Antonio Ballatore, who has become a huuuge star on HGTV with his own highly successful show. Insert sarcasm HERE. See, Antonio has been missing from HGTV since about an hour after last season ended, but we are told he will debut his new show, The Antonio Treatment in the coveted Sunday night at 11PM EST slot.

Yeah, it pays to win this show.

Anyway, Antonio tells the Final Three! Final Three! to "be themselves"--Reality Show Quip # 612--and to "go big or go home"--Reality Show Quip #298--before setting them loose in their tiny hamster cages, er, sunrooms, to create a room which best showcases what their HGTV show will be. Seriously, they waited until now to see what the designers POV was going to be? Shouldn't that have been Question 1 in Episode 1?

MICHAEL

Michael’s concept is to help recent graduates, or as he calls them, starter outers, use found objects and flea market buys, to create their space. He finds a tire rim and turns it into a table when he tops it with a piece of glass. I did this in my bedroom when I was like fourteen and there was no one offering me my own show.

Seriously? Tire rim furnishings? What next? Cinderblock shelving? Oh wait.....that'll come up.

And then Michael takes on the task of building a Murphy bed. We've seen, time and again, that Michael is not a builder, so what is he thinking. He measures it and cuts it, and measures it again because he cut it wrong. Even I know the mantra is "Measure twice, cut once" not "Measure once, cut, measure again, cut again."

And again, no one offering me a show.

Antonio comes by to see Michael's room, and he's worried about the bed--he should be worried about why his show is on during the graveyard shift. He thinks Michael is a bit nutty, and shouldn't be going this route, but didn't he say Go Big Or Go Home? Make up your mind, Antonio.

In the end, I like Michael's room best, because it's quite functional. A work space, an entertaining area, and a Murphy bed that actually works. It's very eclectic, from tire rims, to glass decals to old desk.

CASEY

Casey is the design-on-a-budget gal using things you already have and a can of spray paint.

She decides to cover the back wall with plywood, and then paint it kind of a coral red. She has as much skill as Michael when it comes to building so I was waiting for her to screw herself to the wall. She doesn't; at least not to the wall.

Casey offers up one of those DesignStar words that every tosses around because they think it makes them sound professional: Vintage. She gathers up vintage frames and then whips out a can of spray paint to make the frames into art. Again, this has been seen and done before, so I'm not getting how this is new and innovative. The diea sivintage, not the frames, and by vintage I mean old.

What she does do that I like is to hang draperies on the ceiling, which creates a tented effect in the room. That was genius. And Antonio compliments her on the draped roof and her bold color choice, because he uses bold colors on his show, which we haven't seen--and won't watch. But he says her design POV needs to come through in more places than the back wall'o'frames' and some spray painted knickknacks.

But Casey relied too much on spray paint, for tables, vases, lamps, frames; her friend who came by to help even got covered with paint and placed in a corner like a cigar store Indian.

I kid, but it could have happened.

In the end, Casey's room is very minimal. Now, I like minimal, but this was too little even for me. It looked like a set piece and not an actual room.

EMILY

Emily wants to take a client’s personal fashion style and turn that into a design so that they can look like their house.

So, to that end, she glues--yes, glues--fabric to the back wall of windows, telling us it isn't permanent, and only lasts about two years. It's nice fabric, but the idea of gluing it to windows or walls doesn't seem very smart to me.

Plus, Emily goes college dorm room and creates shelves out of cinderblocks covered with wood. Granted, you couldn't see the cinderblock, but I wondered which part of her fashion style was represented by cinderblocks? Blockhead. Yes. Now I see it.

Emily's voice is going, so when Antonio comes by that is the major focus of their conversation, not her design aesthetic or her choices, or his show, which airs in the dead of night. But if Antonio lost his voice and he got a show out of it, well.....

In the end, Emily's room is too much for me. Too much fabric, and furniture and stuff.,

JUDGING

The judges sit and watch all of the Final Three! Final Three! in their hosting videos.

Casey is smooth and easy, but you don't get much from her. It's a little look at this, now look at this, and let's finish by looking at this. In design terms, she was beige.

The judges find her unfocused, and Candice doesn't feel the room is cohesive. It's nice bits that don't add up to a lot. Vern says he missed the life in Casey, the spark, but he did like what she did with the ceiling.

Michael is less frenetic, and flirtatious--read: gay--in his video, and he seems to show off the room very well; he makes it very personal. The judges think he's much better than his tres gay of week's past. Candice likes his passion, but missed his Broken-Angel-Mirror-Wow moment for this space. Genvieve, once again not making any sense and causing me to wonder who she shtupped to be on TV, says she wishes the Michael in front of them was the same Michael as on the video, but explains no more. Her statements make as much sense as her design aesthetic.

Emily did only one take because her voice was going, and because she channeled Genvieve and made no sense. She started, on the couch, by saying Do you suffer from the My-home-doesn't-look-at-all-like-myself blues? And it made less sense from there. She pointed out her dress, than the fabric walls; her sleeves inspired accessories; her belt was a rug. I was confused. Like her room it was too much.

Vern, moron that he is, said he liked the start, and that Emily has a good eye. Genvieve called it a rich room and it was hard to make a glass room look rich. Yeah, I didn 't get that either.

VERDICT

Michael is given the good news first. Top two! Top Two! He refrains from weeping, though, so I'll give him credit.

Now it's down to the other two girls.

And Emily gets the nod.

Casey, I think, lost because she was too minimal and too simplistic, and that doesn't translate well to TV. She just wasn't big enough, and as Antonio, whose show is on sometime after 4AM in the Korean market, told us, Go big or go home.

I am puzzled by this show:

Tire rim tables?

Cinderblock shelving?

Spray painting everything?

Design star?