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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
