Top Design Top 4 Recap: When will they design an actual room?

Elisa Camahort — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 10:19:06 -0500

You know, in a house...like yours or mine? Anyone else wishing they'd do something like that now?

I don't know, I guess it's creative to design a party or a restaurant room or, in this week's episode, a hotel suite, but I was kind of hoping they would spend some time designing a room I could imagine in my house. Just like on Project Runway they work on clothes I could potentially wear. (Not that I really could, seeing as I'm not a size 2 supermodel, but you know what I mean.)

So, this week, as I said: a hotel suite. Oh, and each designer had to design with one of the four elements in mind (that would be air, water, fire and earth, for those of you who aren't up on your archaic references.)

There was a pretty big prize involved...a spread in Metropolitan Home, and a nice budget. And three whole days to work on it. But they all still whined away.

What did we learn this week?

-We learned that Goil exhibits a kind of designer-bi-polar behavior. He's giddy, he's whiny, he feels left out, he owns many pairs of eyeglasses.

-We learned that Andrea is really anti-Earth! Or anti-"earthy." Or anti-"crunchy granola." Or something. She really really struggled with the Earth theme, repeatedly claimed she didn't want to be too literal or cheesy. And then painted the room brown, made bed-posts that were supposed to be tree trunks, had grass growing everywhere, and had botanical art. Um, I do not think that work "literal" means what you think it means Andrea.

-We learned that Carl and Carisa are either an old married couple or hate each other, but either way the bickering isn't pretty.

-We learned that Matt picked an accident-prone carpenter, but still managed to make the guy nearly cutting off his thumb all about him: would he finish? How noble is he that he doesn't care, because someone got hurt working on his room?

So, the judges will be scoring based on the ever-popular design, execution, and in this case: how well they incoporated their assigned "element."

1. Carisa was assigned Air

I would think air would be the hardest element because you can't see it or touch it. Carisa talked some high-falutin' talk about anti-space or negative space, but her basic theme was that you would be staying in an air duct. OK, no, it was actually a cool concept to have those huge louvered screens on two opposing walls, with a third one acting as a screen between the living and sleeping areas. But it was also a bit industrial...not really all that luxurious. Her color scheme was dark blue, black and white, and it was also a very functional room...which as a frequent traveler I can tell you actually IS important. It was definitely bold and striking and conceptual, so I can see why the judges liked it.

2. Goil was assigned Fire

I knew he as in trouble because, let's face it, hotel rooms are not decorated in reds and oranges very often. It doesn't spell luxury. It doesn't spell restful or relaxing. Goil is really into weird hanging structures that he spends tons of time on, but that no one would miss if they weren't there. In this case he totally could have lost the weird hanging metal curtain. I liked his interlocking wall panels. They actually tied the room together, because the rest of it seemed a bit randomly thrown together. not space-wise, the layout worked. But rather that no one piece seemed to need to be associated with the other pieces. Everything was very individual.

3. Andrea was assigned Earth

And whined incessantly about it. Andrea was the only one to create windows, which no one mentioned, but which I thought was cool. I didn't get the long bench in the room. That made no functional or stylistic sense to me. Again, she was very literal, down to painting a blue stripe along the top of the walls to indicate the sky. The headboard was really busy and didn't fit. The growing grass was ridiculous, because you need your surfaces in a hotel room. I actually liked the botanical art, but have to admit it was also like a neon light screaming "Look, this is earthy!" Frankly this was just an ugly room. probably my least favorite.

4. Matt was assigned Water

The one thing I didn't like about this design was how it completely split the room down the middle. Rug on one side, white floor on the other. Screening device (that didn't really screen.) It made the room look smaller to me. But Matt's use of Lucite and mirror pieces really made a statement and tipped a hat to his assigned element. It was clear that Carisa did something more unexpected and unique and bold. But Matt delivered to the design brief the best.

The judges review and had the following comments:

Carisa's room
Pros: Loved her return to confidence, color and happiness. Jonathan dug the screen concept. Kelly like the drapery wall, thought it gave the room depth (I didn't even really notice that part.)
Cons: Kelly also pointed out that housekeeping would hate the room!

Goil's room:
Pros: Kelly liked the layout.
Cons: Needed better, more comfortable chairs. The wall element took all his focus. It was too literal, although they appreciated the amount of work and effort and thought he put in. But he's too theoretical.

Andrea's room:
Pros: Kelly liked the bed.
Cons: kelly didn't get the bench either. And everyone hated the grass. They asked why it never occurred to her to use a more upbeat green color amongst all those browns.

Matt's room: Kelly liked the luxury. They all liked its feeling of verticality, partially assisted by the use of creative low moldings. Loved the wall color. Nice accessories.
Cons: They didn't like his rug color.

Then they asked each designer: "Who stands between you and the Top Design?"

Carisa said Matt
Andrea said Matt
Matt said Nobody
Goil first said everyone and then Andrea

(This is either foreshadowing that Matt's going to run away with it, or that Carisa is the dark horse who will be the winner.)

The winner of this challenge (and the MetHome spread) is Matt.
The bottom 2 were Andrea and Goil.
And Goil is going home.

He started out with such promise and creativity, but I think he folded under each week's time pressures. Too bad.

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Top Design Top 4 Recap: When will they design an actual room?