Injera has seen Top Design Season 2 through to the end. Thanks Injera I hope this not the last we see of you guest posting on this blog.

Top Design – The Finale

Series recap, including another glimpse of India Hicks’ ensemble from last week (thanks for pointing it out, RR, it really was worth seeing again!). For the last time this season – and, perhaps, ever since Bravo is not publicising a “cycle three” – India reminds us what’s at stake: $100K, a spread in Elle Decor, and “the right to say they have the Top Design”.

The first we see of Nathan, he is shirtless and doubled over in the courtyard at Union Lofts. Yoga? Food poisoning? As he contemplates how narrowly he made the final, we see him – shirtless again – getting ready for the final challenge. He has a newfound confidence and he is expressing that with an orange shirt that he is struggling to get into. There must have been a shirtless-screen-time requirement, because the next shot is another topless one. This time, thank God, it’s Preston. He is reflecting on his journey and we see a montage of photos of little Preston (that’s Preston as a child, people! Not a euphemism for his junk).

As Ondine’s first interview for the episode starts, we see her wrangling a lot of shopping bags down the stairs. She tells us that they have a busy day ahead, with $60,000 to spend and “many stores to go to”. I think she’ll find it easier to manage the shopping if she starts off empty handed, but perhaps she’s planning to shoplift some of the smaller things to supplement her budget… She’s “very excited” to make the final three. As she talks about her path to Top Design we see some photos of her as a teenager, dressed in early-Madonna-drag.

The final three squish into the back of an SUV to go to Aztek (sic) Wallcoverings. Preston and Nathan are napping; Ondine is making notes. She has a pen in her mouth and one in her hand. She’s serious about this! I rewound a couple of times, but couldn’t tell whether she also had one behind her ear. As they arrive at Aztek, the caption tells us that they have 8 hours to spend their $60,000, which is $7,500 per hour or $125 a minute (near enough to $2.08 per second). This is going to be action packed!

I hope the next shopping destination is going to be more interesting than Aztek! They had already chosen the wallcoverings, so they just pop in and collect their orders. You can bet there were some arguments in the editing suite over this particular scene, which must have made it in due to a contractual obligation.

As the three are driven to their next stop, we get images of signs of what Ondine describes as “some of the most unique stores in Los Angeles”. PSA: do not modify the word unique. The first store we see is nadeau. nadeau is so unique that it doesn’t need a capital letter. Nathan picks up an enormous Indian chest because it reminds him of a sarcophagus. It will fit into his overall concept of “hip, young, good-looking… art collector’s home”. Preston’s theme is “sleek and modern with a traditional twist… clean and polished” and Ondine is going for “Danish modern chic”, so of course she’s looking for Indonesian furniture.

India is waiting outside the houses for them, and reminds them that they have just over two days left. She has thoughtfully painted and wallpapered their houses for them. Thanks India! One thing, though, how did you manage that when they had only picked up their wallpaper a couple of hours ago? She is also giving them two carpenters and a seamstress each.

She gives a cunning grin as she suggests that even these resources might not be enough. Anybody not born yesterday will know what’s coming next, although all those on screen will make a huge effort to look surprised. There is much screeching as Andrea, Natalie and Eddie appear. Eddie interviews that he’d much rather be on the beach right now, so we know he’ll be a huge asset as a helper. Each finalist chooses a paint swatch to reveal their helper. Nathan gets Natalie and their happiness looks reasonably genuine. When India reveals that Preston’s “red” choice means he has Eddie to help, the “yay”s are forced on both sides. In fact, this is the first time I’ve seen Preston smile in anything less than a dazzling fashion. Poor baby. Preston interviews that Eddie is very good at what he does, so he’s happy to have his help. Eddie interviews that he will tell Preston to “go f*ck himself” if he asks Eddie to get him a coffee.

This means that Ondine and her BFF Andrea will be working together. Ondine is “super happy” and acknowledges that Andrea “gave her the place in the competition”. Andrea is pleased to be back, but – in the decisive fashion I always loved her for – is “kinda” frustrated because “this would have totally been a challenge that I think I coulda done good at so I’m definitely kinda kicking myself for breaking”. For the last time, Andrea: Shut Up.

Preston shows Eddie around his townhouse and describes his vision. Eddie sees that Preston is doing the usual slick hotel schtick. He says that, because they are both professionals, they can respect each other and work together, but “I’m here to help him, I’m not here to make him win”. Sometimes, in his efforts to be petty all the time, Eddie stops making sense.

Natalie ooohs and ahhhs over Nathan’s ideas, which is exactly what you’d want at this stage, I think. Moral support, and some gophering. As they wander around, we get a Nathan-as-a-boy montage and he was cute, but no Preston. He reminds us that his parents split when he was young (which isn’t quite on the Preston sympathy scale, but then “each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”) but he doesn’t revisit the fanning-of-the-Cosmos as a turning point in his design career. I’m sorry that this could the last time I see Nathan’s crazy grey interview sweater, because I still haven’t quite figured out how it works.

Ondine is meeting the carpenters and she has lots of things for them to make, including a headboard. At first I thought she said it was “all 12 by 12 metre tiles” and was thinking that she was having a Nigel Tufnel moment. I had to watch it back a few times until I got “mirror” tiles, which seems like a hideous idea. She says that she’s worked with the carpenters before, and that Larry is “a liiiiiiitle slow”, so of course I am going to spend the rest of the episode looking for William Sanderson, whose last unexpected appearance was in “Lost”. And then when it’s over, I’ll watch me some Deadwood.

We’re back with Preston, and he’s explaining that the room that won him through to the final is being changed to a dining room, now that he has a chandelier. The space works better as a dining room, given its position and size, but he seems to be giving himself a lot more work as a result. Hope it pays off!

As Nathan’s sarcophagus is hauled upstairs – by seven guys – he has a moment when he raises his hands to tear at his hair and finds… that he’s bald. He loves the chest but it’s twice as big as he needs. Ah, well – live and learn.

The designers now have a chance to spend $5000 at a store of their choice. What a novel idea. As Preston heads off to shop, confident that Eddie “the professional” Ross is capable of handling things in his absence, Eddie skives off to Nathan’s house and encourages Natalie to play hooky with him. Preston calls with a whole lot of instructions. Eddie puts him on speaker and makes some “listening” noises – and some not-listening faces – then puts the phone down on the stairs and walks off, leaving Preston talking to no-one.

Heeeeeeeere’s Todd! He validates Preston’s choices for mouldings, likes Nathan’s cantilevered shelving idea, and suggests that Ondine uses some bright colours to contrast with the dark furniture. She says she’ll do that “with flowers and pillows”, which seems a bit after-thoughty.

Outside, Todd expands on his impressions of the designs so far. Preston’s is masculine, with a nice balance between sombre and vibrant. Nathan’s is “Nathanesque”, and you can’t ask for more than that. Ondine’s is a masterful balance of colours and textures. Todd can’t tell who’s going to win!

The day is over and the designers, and helpers, jump into the pool. They all seem to be having fun, and Nathan interviews that they were realising that it was one of the last times they’d all be together, so… Preston gets out of the pool (oh, why, Preston? Why?) for some quality “alone time”. Seriously, I get that he’s probably a Myers-Briggs “I”, but there are only two days left, then there’s all the “alone time” you could wish for!

Last full work day. Ondine’s painting, Preston’s deciding on quick’n'not-dirty-looking solutions rather than complex, not-going-to-be-finished-in-time ideas, and Nathan is using paper plates to make a chandelier. Is he being sponsored by Royal Chinet? Ondine is starting to worry that she won’t get everything done, so shifts into “crazy gear”.

Final morning! Nathan is obviously one of those “breakfast is the most important meal” people – he tucks into the largest bowl of Cheerios I’ve ever seen and then chows down a banana (and he obviously never watched “Australian Princess”, because he just peels it down and eats it like a monkey. No knife and fork!). He is musing about what will happen if he wins. Watch out for Nathan Thomas Wallpaper, Bedding and Furniture. Ondine wants to open a “storefront” in Brooklyn with the prize money. For Preston, it’s all about the pride, so I guess he’ll donate the money to Interior Designers Without Borders.

The final touches are going ahead now. Preston and Eddie are draping fabric over the bed and Nathan is making art. Ondine doesn’t have time for such frippery – one of her beds still isn’t made, and by “isn’t made” I don’t mean “hasn’t got hospital corners”, I mean that the carpenter is still hammering (or using liquid nails).

The designers and their helpers celebrate finishing, some more enthusiastically than others. Eddie congratulates Preston, hugs him and leaves with a breezily insincere “we’ll definitely chit and chat sometime soon”, then interviews that he likes Ondine’s and Nathan’s designs better. Nathan and Natalie hug and she leaves. Andrea would love Ondine to win because 1. she will totally take credit for it and 2. she will guilt Ondine into giving her some of the prize money. Like she needs it.

Here come the judges! Kelly Wearstler is with them, thank God, and she is wearing a very short, very ruffled, very white dress with those revolting gladiator style shoes that all the young things seem to be so fond of these days. Unfortunately she’s not wearing a hat. They visit Ondine first, who explains her concept as “hip, young, retro glam”. The hydrangeas say otherwise. Kelly asks about continuity, which is a good question, since there is no cohesion whatsoever. I want Ondine to stop saying “mirror” – it sounds like she’s talking about the space station.

Preston’s house is next for the walkthrough. There are no comments on the downstairs living space, but when Preston draws attention to the orange slices he put into a decanter of water “for a splash of colour” in the upstairs room, Jonathan tells him that he wants more. Nobody says anything about the dining room, but Jonathon wants to know where the “splash of colour” is in the master bedroom. Not a good sign. If you have to ask… Preston eagerly points out the colour in the guest suite and India’s “oooh!” sounds edited in. The office? Has all the colour. Kelly is the only judge who asks questions that are not rhetorical. She asks Preston who the client is for his house. Preston says the office would work for “a man or a woman” and that the whole house would suit either “male or female” which are the worst answers in the world. His first response indicates that he thinks there are only two clients; that all women want the same thing and that all men want the same thing. His second response seems to reveal that he doesn’t even restrict that to human divisions. “Male or female”. Well, it would suit the First Lady, my grandpa, a lioness or a peacock. Of course. Kelly looks deeply sceptical.

Nathan welcomes the judges to his “bohemian bourgeois cottage entry gallery foyer space”. That’s exactly what he says – punctuation doesn’t help make it any less unintelligible. Or any more intelligible. The judges remain fairly quiet as Nathan does his talk-through, although India admonishes him to “copyright” his Nathan Thomas Collection Paper Plate Chandelier^TM. Nathan shows off his sarcophagus and Jonathan says he would have preferred that it was used as a “table top or something”. He doesn’t suggest how it could have been used as anything but a feature piece – it’s huge! Way too tall to be a practical table “or something”. There are now blinds and drapes in the master bedroom, but the bed is still the same. When Nathan points out that he didn’t change the bed, Jonathan snaps “Well, you should have”. He’s in a pissy mood! As the judges leave, Nathan once again tries to tear at his non-existent hair.

This is a tough one to call! I think it will be like Masterchef, where Greg and John always eliminate one of the final three, then choose between two. Ondine will be the early discard.

India introduces the judges, and Jonathan looks a lot more relaxed now that he’s on the couch. Nathan is first up for judging and Jonathan puts him at his ease by telling him they were expecting lots of low points from his work, and he surprised them. It wasn’t nearly as bad as they thought it would be! Anyway, he asks Nathan what he thinks is the lowest point and Nathan really has a couple of choices here – he can say “the bed”, and make Jonathan happy, and he can say the sarcophagus, and hope that makes Jonathan happy. He goes with the sarcophagus and Jonathan nods enthusiastically. Good call, Nathan! He explains that he kept it because he couldn’t bear to ask the removalists to move it after all the effort put into getting it up the stairs. Margaret asks if it wasn’t “worth $100,000 to move it?” and if she’s seriously going to rule him out because of this, I’ll never buy Elle Decor again! Kelly likes the entrance room and the dining area. Jonathan loves the art. Kelly likes the “vocabulary” of the objects and art chosen and the “friction” created by them.

Ondine is praised for producing the most “pulled together” work she’s done. Margaret uses the word “loved” a lot in her summary of the house. Kelly suggests that some of the “assessories” could have been pulled back. Without prompting, Ondine decides to blame a lack of time for not editing the accessories on the carpenter to deflect criticism. She opens the door for Margaret questioning whether she asked too much of the tradespeople. She says she didn’t – that her crew could have done it – but she really did.

Preston’s house gets some positive comments, particularly his choice of mouldings for the guest room. Kelly doesn’t like the dining room because the furniture looks too much like a “set”. Jonathan is “wowed” by the little touches Preston brings to things, like draping the fabric on the bed. He uses the phrase “great design”. I’m getting mixed messages here! Cannot predict! India dismisses the designers so the judges can get down to the real business.

Kelly thinks they each did an incredible job. Her accent really comes out when she’s being gushing. Jonathan loves each of the houses, for different reasons, and is “wildly conflicted”.

India decides to put a stop to the love-fest and introduces some structure to the discussion by asking the judges to present the case for Ondine. Margaret liked some things – the headboard, the girl’s bedroom – but criticises her planning. Kelly thinks the story was more “cohesive” than with some previous work, but I just don’t see that.

India kicks off the Nathan discussion by pointing out how strong and individual he is. Jonathan liked it – found it provocative. Margaret thinks he’s “wildly inventive and creative” but felt that some of his ideas are a bit “random”, and I think she means that in a literal way, not in the current teen usage. She doesn’t see the point of Nathan’s front room. God, it’s a “bohemian bourgeois cottage entry gallery foyer space”! Duh! Really, what she should be doing is giving whatever architect designed the townhouses an absolute caning. It’s a ridiculous space – pointless and arbitrary. Margaret and Jonathan hate on the wallpaper a bit, but they all give the “wall of ex-boyfriends” a huge rave. Jonathan is really getting in some good lines tonight! When India starts rhapsodizing over the “fun” Nathan has, he interjects with “just like Samantha Fox said”. Once again, I wish I could screen grab – India’s expression in response to this is gold.

So, what do the judges think of Preston? Or, as India says, with no thought of objectivity at all: “perfect Preston”. Margaret thinks it was the most polished, so maybe we can say “perfect polished Preston”. Do we have any advance on “p” adjectives? Margaret loved the guest room, but Jonathan thinks more “punctuation” was needed (well, it’s a noun, but it starts with P). As Margaret raves on and on about Preston, Kelly stage-yawns and mainstream Margaret gets all defensive.

Jonathan wraps up the judging (at least, I’m hoping he’s wrapping up! This seems to have gone for-ev-ah) with this: “If you wanted… a house that looks sharp and would wow your friends, Preston would be your guy. If you want a house that just sort of has a nice vibe, Ondine would be your gal. If you want magic, Nathan would be your guy, but you would know that you were taking a risk”. Any clues there? Backstage, Nathan seems to have accepted defeat – he’s referring to his sarcophagus as merely a “coffin” now.

Back to India – do we have a winner? Well, you’d bloody hope so! The designers come in for the verdict, but Jonathan just wants to say some (more) final words. Oh, god, it’s like being at a bad wedding! Enough of the speeches, already. Nathan – versatile, dramatic failures but also dramatic successes. Ondine – be more you! Keep being bold and whimsical! Preston – you’re brilliantly talented, polished and perfect, confident, amazing, beautiful.

Drum roll! It’s Nathan, which I am really pleased about, but… most of the adjectives pointed to Preston. He’ll be gutted. We see final interviews with Preston who says nothing unpredictable, except that he might try to be less safe, and with Ondine who has learned that there’s room for everyone to be successful. Nathan seems totally overwhelmed, but still manages an eyebrow pop in his final interview. “Bravery is the way to go.”

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Injera has written another witty recap of Top Design. I think she encapsulates the personalities of the contestants perfectly.

Top Design – Finale Part 1

We’re down to our last four contestants. Who will still be there at the end? Ondine is pleased to be in the final four and she is now doing it for Andrea. So, if Ondine wins, she’ll split the prize with Andrea? This is not addressed.

It’s the morning of the penultimate challenge. Nathan comes in with a birthday cake ablaze for Eddie. Eddie blows out the candles, while his voiceover generously acknowledges that the others have talent, and that he gets along well with Ondine and Nathan. Poor Preston is, at this point in the VO, lurking in a corner by himself. Apparently he’s not part of the “posse” because he’s “LA” and they are “New York”. As the posse leaves the room, Preston reflects that he needs “time alone… and I’ve had none. Zero. And that’s been one of the most frustrating things”. As he says this, he is shown, alone, gazing wistfully at the door the others went out. Awww. Then the edit cuts back to his interview, where he does a strange eye-roll – is he blinking back tears? Brave, lonely tears?

India meets the designers outside a row of hideous – sorry, “beautiful” – houses. The challenge? To design a room in one of them. They have two days. “But that’s not all!” The three finalists will then go on to design the whole house! The budget for the entire house is… $85,000. It would have been good if they were given that budget up front – I’m sure some designers would have been tempted to blow a lot on their first room – but this is not how India rolls. She gives them $20,000 for this room “to encapsulate (their) vision”.

Planning time! Ninety minutes to measure and order things. That doesn’t seem like a whole lot of time, does it? Ondine usually spends a year doing a whole house. Eddie kindly explains the layout of the house in an interview as he is shown walking through it – formal living room, dining/kitchen/family, master bedroom and “two little rooms at the end, which would be considered the office and a second bedroom”. Given that India described the houses as “three bedrooms”, I think a producer is going to have a job to do to placate the partner real estate agent for this contemptuous description.

Eddie is ostensibly trying to figure out which room he will design for the initial part of the challenge, and what he will do to it. Instead, he goes off into a reverie about his own “master bedroom” that he misses so much. It’s all blah-blah-luxury-blah-blah-easy-breezy-blah-blah-elegant-blah-blah-super-rich. Being in the Hamptons is a crucial part of his description. Will he seriously just superimpose that on a stucco LA monstrosity?

Preston shows a very sensible pragmatic approach by choosing the family room off the kitchen, because he can either do it as a dining space or casual space. He’s so LA, and so is this house! Unlike Eddie, he actually seems to have a vision for the whole house, so he would appear to be off to a flying start. He describes his vision as “transitional” which is, apparently, “contemporary meets traditional”. Is that really a style? It sounds like indecision. It’s how his home is decorated. This is starting to remind me of the Brady Bunch movie, where Mike continues to design the same house for any brief…

Nathan! At ten, he practiced his “vacuum lines” in his mom’s house. No, not limbering up for an adolescent coke habit; trying to get the carpet as perfect as he could. His magazine fanning habit also started then, with his mom’s Cosmos. He, too, goes for the master bedroom.

Ondine, for some reason, chooses one of the bedrooms, because she’s had experience “tricking up…tiny spaces” Back at the real estate agent’s HQ, somebody is losing their job.

Random interview snippets: Eddie doesn’t care what the judges want – he’s in it for him. Ondine echoes the thoughts of many reality contestants when she says “to come this far and not win would suck. It would totally suck”. Does she really think she has a chance of winning though? I mean, if Ricky Schroeder wasn’t such a stud, Ondine wouldn’t even be there today.

The designers head off to Plantation armed with sold stickers. Preston infuriates Eddie by liberally wallpapering the shop with stickers, then adding the prices up. What really should infuriate Eddie, though, is that Preston presumes to judge Eddie’s taste by telling him that “this is really you”. Unfortunately we don’t see “this”, but we see Eddie’s pursed lips and disapprovingly placed finger.

The designers finish up at Plantation and then head to Jaxon, another furniture store. Presumably they knew that this was in their itinerary, but it sees a bit odd. Ondine, for example, says she didn’t find much at Plantation, so she’s relying on Jaxon; Eddie and Preston seemed to buy a lot of stuff at Plantation – what if they see something better now? Ondine has lost track of time and has completely screwed up her shopping. She basically ends up leaving it in the hands of a salesperson.

Just before the break: a totally random 30 seconds of Nathan prancing around in a wig and costume, pretending to be “the host of Top Design”. No commentary, just the posse falling about laughing.

Shopping at the Top Design showroom. Eddie notes that they all have a decent shopping strategy worked out by now and, as they leave, calls out “watch my bush”. Eddie’s the kind of guy who’d buy an indoor plant purely for the chance to use this line.

Eddie celebrates his birthday with “hard liquor”. He seems to pick on Preston some more. While the others are shown drinking it up and having fun, Preston is brushing his teeth. In his voiceover, he talks about his father who died of alcoholism, and a cousin who died of a drug problem. Poor, sad Preston. He retreats into his own zone.

Ah! Context! Now we see Nathan in his “Top Design host” drag. His wig is black and curly and he’s wearing a green headband, tight green t-shirt, black… leggings?… and black pumps. For some reason, his “Top Design” is in Japan. It makes no sense and was obviously one of those things that was hi-lar-ious if you were there, and shitfaced. Eddie and Nathan then do a joint, drunk, interview where they start to slag off Preston, but then realise that they will come off looking like “pigs”, so call it a day. Very wise.

Elimination day! Ondine says she’s feeling a little pressured. She looks a little rough. Preston’s going to be happy when the furniture’s in and he can see what he’s working with. Nathan wants to prove that he’s not “paper plates on walls”, but that’s worked pretty well for him so far. Eddie? Is probably throwing up somewhere.

The wallpaper hangers have been and Ondine thinks her room looks “great”. The wallpaper is a very busy black pattern on white, which looks as though it might be flock. The room looks tiny. Furniture has been delivered, and there seems to be an awful lot of it in Ondine’s house. She’s pleased that everything she wanted came in, but I’ll be surprised if it all fits into her room. It hardly seems to fit into the big living space.

Contestants have two hours with the movers and there seem to be a lot of stairs to negotiate. Good luck with that! Just as Ondine VOs that the desk is key to her “office” space, the movers are shown struggling to get it through the door. With only two hours, she goes for dismantling the desk. It is glued together, so won’t come apart. Ondine will, and does.

Preston demonstrates his talent for directing movers, which he honed at a young age. We keep getting snippets of insight into the inner workings of Preston. I still think he may be a replicant – his verbal mannerisms can be quite odd. “My mother was divorced…”. Not “my parents were divorced”. Anyway, they moved around a lot and he was a perfectionist, is the gist of this. If it goes down to Preston vs Nathan, I hope the producers get a couple of ten-year olds in to act out their formative years. Young Preston could be in a smock; Young Nathan would be wearing a gingham apron. They’d be given a room, with furniture, accessories and cleaning products and appliances. They would have two hours to organise everything. Young Preston would spend all his time ordering muscular men to reposition lamps. Young Nathan would attempt to recreate the garden of Ryoan-ji with a hoover and cut-pile carpet.

Ondine’s movers have managed to get her desk in, and Eddie drops by to give his opinion: “gorgeous”. Nathan says it’s “really cool…very graphic”.

Here comes Todd! He validates Preston’s choice of an antler-y looking silver sculpture on the coffee table. He tells Ondine to “treat” the window. He tries to gently steer Eddie towards being mindful of the judges’ comments. He suggests that Nathan should put something between the windows. The only person he fails with is Eddie, but we all know how disdainful Eddie is of the opinions of mere judges.

During the whole Todd sequence, we are only given very small glimpses of the designers’ rooms, so it will be good to see them in their entirety. That is, of course, except for Ondine’s room, which is so small that no camera angle tricks could keep it a secret.

With the final 90 minutes, Preston is gluing plates to the wall. Nathan is a little worried that his strategy of doing something different – i.e. conventional, rather than wild – will backfire. Meanwhile, he is ironing the linen on the bed. Ondine has abandoned Todd’s suggestion of drapes, because she doesn’t think she’ll be able to do them properly. She’s taken on Eddie’s critique from the dishwasher stacking last week, but is going to a bold new place.

Here come the judges, and our chance to see the finished rooms. Margaret and Jonathan are joined by Jeff Lewis, the “house flipper” we last saw in Bachelor Pad. Eddie introduces his design, which is captioned “Easy Breezy”, by saying “welcome to my master bedroom in a second home in East Hampton.” I can certainly see that aesthetic in the room, but… this is not a second home in East Hampton, Eddie! Surely he’ll be caned for that. It’s blues and whites with a random lattice framing the windows. India looks dubious about the whole thing and Jonathan wants to talk “bedscaping”. Eddie doesn’t want to tschotchke it up with colourful pillows.

Nathan’s room is captioned “elegant and refined” and he describes it as “open and fresh and clean”. He does his usual talkfest and the judges scribble notes as the camera pans across the driftwood sculpture and silvered skull. Nathan thinks there’s a “sexual influence” in his choice of pieces, and Jonathan wants this clarified. Jeff hones in on the vase of nails by the bed as the phallic metaphor and I’m annoyed that “sexual” equals “phallic” for him. But then, he’s a tool. As they say, “if you only have a hammer…”.

Now to Preston and his “contemporary meets traditional” lounge right off the kitchen. The camera work for Preston’s design is a bit strange – the “before” shot seems to give the impression of a large, open space, but his design is extremely small and cluttered. His literal streak emerges when Margaret questions him about using plates instead of artwork on the walls – it’s near the kitchen! Just as well it wasn’t near the toilet (although Americans would never say toilet). He says the plates are easy on the eye and India chimes in with “you are easy on the eye! Never doubt it!”. Bless her, and her Crabtree and Evelyn range. Jeff wants to know where the TV goes and Preston indicates that it would be in the formal living space downstairs. How bizarre.

Ondine’s tiny “modern and graphic” office/guestroom looks a lot bigger than it did in previous shots. She sells her idea that designing a small space is harder than a larger space, but I wonder how she’ll finish the rest of the house if she gets through – she’s spent nearly a quarter of her budget on what most people would think of as an “afterthought”. Jonathan questions her about drapery and she admits that she thought of it (o rly, Ondine?) but didn’t want to do something that looked unprofessional. She also says she abandoned her throw pillows because they were too busy. The judges don’t ask her about her vision for the rest of the house, which they did to the others. Are they sending us a signal? Should she just pack her bags now?

(Oooh, thanks Arena! Looks like I’m going to get my first crack at The Rachel Zoe Project soon!)

The designers line up for what might be a final appraisal. Eddie has dressed for the occasion in a tweed jacket, waistcoat and a bow tie. That’s a whole lotta look.

Nathan is praised for the fact that he also styled the bathroom, but Margaret uses this positive as a springboard to pan his overall room. I agree that the bed didn’t really match some of the accessorising, but I think he’s being caned for their preconceptions. He says that he was “stuck” with the bed, which might have been a development that was left out in the edit. He wanted to show some versatility by making a “pretty” room, but obviously overlooked the fact that Margaret doesn’t think “pretty” is “memorable”. Quite possibly true, but can you see Nathan’s Light it Up room getting into Elle Decor?

Eddie’s reaction to Nathan’s appraisal shows that, while he is one with his posse in social terms, he would be super-relieved to have Nathan out of the running. We get a shot of all the contestants, and Eddie is wearing jeans to complete his ensemble. Bananas!

Preston’s space was polished and confident, which is one of the reasons the judges wear such wacky clothes each week – it’s so we know that the same Preston judging loop is not just being replayed. Jeff thinks there was too much furniture, but praises Preston’s taste. He does it in such a way that it’s really dismissive,- “you have great taste. You just do [shrug]“; as though it’s actually more of a hindrance than a help. The judges all go piling onto the great taste bandwagon, and all give variations of the “need to see some personality” critique.

Ondine’s room gives Jonathan a chance to spruik unnecessary throw pillows, and Jeff the chance to give Jonathan a smackdown. Black and white is “what’s hot right now”, Jeff says, with no regard to the fact that his input will likely count for nothing against the force of the iconic potter. Margaret loves what Ondine did with the space!

Jonathan finds a new way of saying “granny”, by describing Eddie’s room as “not the youngest or most personal room I’ve ever encountered”. In the shots accompanying his comment, it looks exactly like a spread from Martha Stewart Living. I guess you’ve gotta dance with them that brought ya… Jeff appreciates Eddie’s style, but doesn’t relate to it: “it skews an older demographic, and by older I mean walkers, bedpans and oxygen tanks“. This level of harsh is out of proportion to the actual offence caused by the room. Margaret thinks it’s a stylish room, but is surprised by the disconnect between Eddie’s personality and his designs. Oh, and “decorating isn’t just shopping!”. Thanks for that, Margaret. Eddie seems pretty devastated for someone who doesn’t give a rats about what the judges think.

Judges discussion. They love Preston. Ondine impressed them – “rose phoenix-like from the ashes”. Eddie’s clothing annoys Jeff as much as his design does. It’s personal! Margaret tries to defend Eddie and Jeff won’t have any of it. In the backroom, Eddie repeats his contempt for the judges, complete with pixellated gestures. Back to the judges. Nathan? Could be a disaster, but will have some surprises.

Bring the contestants back… after an ad for Jeff Lewis’ show, Flipping Out. It looks as obnoxious as he is, but I’ll probably watch it.

Ondine’s the first one going through. Preston’s second. Oh, no – it’s down to Eddie and Nathan! I want them to hold hands while they wait for the judgement. They don’t. It’s coming down to consistency versus creativity, basically. They are going with… creativity. Yay! Eddie is apparently hugely relieved to be going. India struggles to dismiss Eddie with the usual line, but works it in by saying -˜we cannot live with your design’ – it pains me to say that”.

It’s not the last we’ll see of Eddie. “Eddie Ross is bigger than Top Design.” Mark his words!

Next week? Nathan, talking about himself in the third person.

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Injera has again done a witty recap of Top Design. The show where interior designers are competing for the prize of what else but “Top Design.

Top Design – Light it Up

“Look, I’m going to wear undies today guys!” And, with that opener, Eddie sets my expectations for this episode to high.

Eddie starts by trash-talking Preston’s talent, then moves on to dissing his dishwasher stacking. This strikes such a chord with me – I have a partner who cannot stack a dishwasher and I think I, too, have used the phrase “if you can’t to something right, don’t do it at all”. Guess who has no comeback when the dishes aren’t done around here?

Andrea’s completely boring story arc snores along when she finds some flowers at the doorstep. They’re from her husband and – I’m not sure whether anybody’s picked this up – she really misses him. Awwwww. Spew. I cannot stand reality show contestants who trot out the “I hate being away from my family” line. What? Somebody forced you to leave them for a TV show? Shut up.

Oh, make it stop! Now Ondine is reading the “love poem” Andrea’s husband wrote. She’s going on about Andrea’s wonderful life and fabulous husband. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Ricky Schroeder in anything, but I guess you can still refer to him as an “actor”. This edit had better portend Andrea’s demise! I can’t work out if Ondine’s being sarcastic when she says “I am thrilled to have met her”.

Finally, the contestants hit the studio, to find it crammed with Jonathan Adler’s “stuff” and India’s book. India comes in, closely followed by Jonathan who springs a “Pop Design” on them. It’s a test of their composition and styling. Eddie is “super confident” at this. Each designer has a beige sofa, plain bookshelf, coffee table and side table, and 30 minutes to use “these magnificent accessories” (Jonathan! Humility, please!) and books from the other judges to style their space. Prize? Well, immunity, and… a surprise.

Go! Running and grabbing! Oh, FFS Andrea! “Accessorising isn’t my number one strength. I’m already feeling the pressure.” What is your number one strength, Andrea? What are you waiting for, a design challenge that showcases your ability to moan in a monotone?

“I feel like I’m doing a Jonathan Adler window. If I wanted to work at a Jonathan Adler store, I would’ve filled out an application.” Oh, Eddie, you are so above this!

Andrea has lots of hideously clashing patterns and admits to turning the bookshelf on its side because she “wouldn’t be any good at accessorising that bookshelf”. Ondine gets some positive reactions from Jonathan for her colour scheme. Eddie says that “as a designer” he doesn’t like “one-stop shopping” but then he fits in a bit of bottom licking by enthusing over the rug. He does, however, bristle when Jonathon calls him a “stylist”, because he’s “a chef, a decorator…”. Nathan’s space looks very poppy but he looks a bit taken aback when Jonathan references Austin Powers. Preston’s looks like a corner in Freedom Furniture. He explains his thinking by saying “this pillow balances that pillow” and I’m not sure why I find this so funny.

Judging. Beginning with Andrea. Not pulled together. Haphazard. Preston: mis-steps. A shop-front. The winner? Eddie! He’s very happy and I’ve just noticed he’s wearing rolled up jeans and thongs (and by “thongs”, I mean “flip flops”, but we do already know he’s wearing undies today). Of course, he doesn’t really think he needs immunity. Give it back?

Elimination challenge time. They head to L.A. Mart. Preston is excited because L.A. Mart showcases a lot of designers and is not open to the public. Andrea? Well, her husband is filming right across the street and “I really miss my husband” and SHUT UP, Andrea!¹ Inside the L.A. Mart, India is standing in front of a blossom tree made of Swarovski crystals. The challenge for the designers is to design a room around a Swarovski chandelier. I don’t know why Preston smiles so happily when India says “the room can be anything you want it to be”, unless, of course, Swarovski chandeliers are his mum’s favourite thing, or in his favourite hotel, thus allowing him to execute one of his two stock designs.

As part of Eddie’s win, he gets to pick the order in which the designers pick their chandeliers. He goes first, and picks the “Golden Teak Glitterbox”. He decides that Andrea should pick next, then Nathan, Ondine and Preston. I’m not sure I see the strategic advantage of putting Andrea second, unless he’s counting on her picking the next best thing by sheer accident. And Preston, last? Does Eddie really think he’s such a threat? “Honestly? Preston and I will not be friends after I leave the show, so a gay’s gotta do what a gay’s gotta do”. Fair enough.

Andrea chooses the “long green one”, which is called the “Light Peridot Glitterbox” and I’ve never seen her use a colour palette that would go anywhere near that gorgeous green. Nathan chooses the “Ice Branch”, Ondine chooses “what looks like the fish net, with crystal” (the “Light Sock”), so Preston is left with the “Sparkle Shady”, which sounds like a collaboration between Eminem and Lady Gaga. It’s as hideous as that would be, but I can see him working it into a hotel room. Preston thinks it will be difficult to work with.

There are two hours to paint, and two hours to shop at the L.A. Mart, with seven hours to complete the space after a sleep. Budget is $22,000, which means that India is expecting “spectacular” rooms. Go!

Eddie has decided to do a “young, hip and cool” dining room. I’m looking forward to the expression on his face when the judges somehow manage to use the adjective “granny” to describe it. He’s chosen “sassy green and some kind of, like, mocha colour” to make the chandelier “pop”. “Sassy green” turns out to be “pea soup”.

Nathan has taped off the walls to capture the shadows cast by his “Ice Branch”. Eddie thinks it is “bonkers”. Nathan is going for “Upper East Side Townhouse bratty rich girl room”.

Ondine is going for “eclectic bedroom” with things from around the world. Andrea is happy because she’s never done anything “dark” and she’s aiming for “Hollywood glam”. She’s painting the walls brown. Preston has finished painting his walls (black, but with an unpainted section in the middle) for his “masculine, surprise, surprise” cocktail lounge.

With 20 minutes left to paint, Nathan looks to be struggling to complete his walls, which he is painting in purple within his pattern line. “My god, what have I done!” He rejects offers of help from Preston, but lets Eddie help, whilst Preston watches. He interviews that he doesn’t “let a lot of (his) personality out” until he’s comfortable around people, so thinks “that’s maybe why they don’t like me”. He’s like a beautiful android, trying to figure out how the humans work. As the designers file past Andrea’s space, Nathan starts laughing. I’m not sure if it’s the colour scheme, or just the realisation that she’s still in the competition.

Shopping! Nathan buys a massive driftwood horse. Andrea wants to spend a lot of money on a sofa. Eddie’s looking for a dining room table – he finds Martha Stewart! He’s so excited! Everything is “gorg”! He wants everything! He totally worships Martha!

Now, cast your minds back to the beginning of this challenge. Eddie’s stated intention was “young, hip and cool”. Now, it’s “Martha”, so I wish I’d put some money on “granny” for the judging… Of course, Eddie has immunity today. Nathan and Andrea look on in disbelief as Eddie self-congratulates “I don’t know where I come up with it. It’s a gift from God!”. “Martha, Martha, Martha,” Nathan sighs. “Martha, Martha, Martha.”

Nathan’s horse arrives, and so does Todd! Who can see it’s going well! Sort of. In fact, he’s dialled it back a bit this week, giving Nathan and Ondine some pointers and telling Andrea “I don’t hate it, at all”. Hmmm. Eddie doesn’t “need somebody to be, like, ‘oh it looks good’. It’s my job to know when something looks good”.

Preston is not in love with his chandelier, but is happy with his room. Eddie sneers a little out of the corner of his mouth, whilst agreeing that it looks good. Nathan is hoping his room reads as “a surprising shock” with its “jolt of colour”. That’s not a jolt, Nathan, that’s an almost homicidal assault!

Five minutes! Plumping, polishing, candle-lighting, fussing, waiting for the judges.

Simon Doonan, creative director of Barney’s in New York, author of “Eccentric Glamour” and Jonathan’s husband, is judging this week, along with stalwarts, Margaret and Jonathan. Andrea is “like, perfect! Because my room’s glamorous”. But is it eccentric? What do you think? She has an incredibly busy green wallpaper that actually makes her chandelier look good. Well done, Andrea. Simon asks her “which time period” and she says “50s, 60s, 70s” (what?), which surprises Simon, as the vase “screams 80s”.

Ondine has a lot of stuff in the room. Monkeys, crabs, Indonesian puppets. The chandelier doesn’t suit the room at all.

Preston sees his room as a cocktail lounge or… “a boutique style hotel in Chicago”. There are geometric patterns and some splashes of colour. I don’t hate it, but I never really have strong feelings about Preston’s stuff. Simon makes a good point about the placement of the chandelier against the wallpaper, but Preston manages to defend his decision. In his interview, Preston has slicked his hair down and is wearing a brown, low-v-necked sweater with a string of brown beads. It’s so… not him! Or, maybe, this is the real Preston and he’s only just letting his personality out. Maybe he finally feels comfortable! I hope not. I prefer shirt-Preston.

Eddie says his chandelier is the focal point. Jonathan and Simon exchange lots of looks as Eddie pretends he’s forgotten about his immunity. India is amazed by the idea of a sofa at a dining table, as am I. I’ve seen long benches, but never an actual sofa. “As a freakishly small person”, Simon wants to try out the sofa. Eddie has no regrets.

Nathan’s room is a whole lotta room! Jonathan says he’s “bananas” and Simon wants to know if it was “acid or crystal meth” (it’s acid). Nathan is very articulate so he can really sell the design.

Back at the warehouse there are comments and questions. Margaret thinks Eddie is disparaging the chandelier and Jonathan thinks that, in Eddie’s room, it looked like “a casket. It was really bad”. Eddie is gracious enough to tell the judges they have a right to their own opinions. Margaret’s appalled that Eddie could do that to a Swarovski light fixture and Jonathan tells him he’s lucky he has immunity. Poor Eddie, the best he could do now is pretend that he really did just phone it in. He looks devastated.

Nathan’s room had a “great, great mood”. He basks in the compliments from Jonathan and Margaret, but Simon is strangely silent.

Jonathan is surprised by Ondine’s room. He thinks some of the furniture is frumpy. Simon points out that the “shrill” light looks strange against the muted “tea-stained” room. He’s right, and he gives Ondine a chance to say that she noticed this, but she doesn’t take the get-out-of-jail-free card.

Margaret thinks Preston’s room is quirky, but the chandelier and mirror fight with each other a little. She’s scraping for criticism here, because she clearly really liked the room. Simon really “didn’t want to leave it”. Preston beams! “It was really great,” emphasises Jonathan.

Andrea gets kudos for her use of strong colour, but the accessorising and styling were not as strong as they should have been. Simon was horrified by the plastic shell and fake orchids. Finally, damning with faint praise, Margaret says “it was great that you had things in the right places, it just wasn’t the right stuff”. Ouch. Andrea has an outpouring of oh-my-god-I-thought-you’d-love-this-why-don’t-you-love-this angst, and the judges are too polite to say “because it’s shit”, but Margaret does say “snap out of it, get over yourself” and then berates her for lacking confidence. I’ve always wondered whether telling a person with low confidence, as they’re crying, that they lack confidence would be a winning strategy. She says she’d like to go home. Nobody rushes to talk her out of it – it all seems a bit “I broke up with you!”.

Judging, for what it’s worth. India says “let’s talk about Andrea”. Margaret tries to talk Andrea’s effort up, noting that she’s made some progress with this design, but Jonathan doesn’t even want to talk about the design. “However, when she said ‘I think I want to go home’, at that moment I’m, like, ‘bye’”. Simon agrees, and Jonathan goes on to say that it’s disrespectful to the other contestants. India tries to support Andrea by saying she doesn’t think it was preconceived, but I think it kind of was, every week. During last week’s episode, we saw a bit of Eddie and Preston having to boost Andrea up and it felt as though it was a regular thing. Perhaps this week, everyone was over it, and didn’t give her the behind-the-scenes pep talks, so she had to go to the judges for her fix.

In the studio, Andrea is still half-sobbing and the others are saying nice things… and then she says “I’m so nervous”. About what? What is her endgame here? Is she hoping that, in quitting, the judges will say “you wouldn’t have been eliminated” so she gets to go home and tell herself that she could’ve won the whole thing?

Eddie’s room is pasted, again. Preston’s is lauded. Nathan’s room was incredibly fantastic. Ondine’s was depressing. Poor Ondine thinks she’s going home and I will probably stop watching this show if she does. Or next week’s recap will be variations on “fuckity fuckity fuck”.

Preston has the top design. In his post-show interview, he’s wearing an emo scarf. He’s a chameleon.

Nathan, Eddie and Preston are sent off, safe, but Eddie’s not happy – he has issues with the judges, so obviously he was lying when he said they were entitled to their opinions. They’re not!

Andrea is told that her room is more successful, based on the criteria for the challenge – to showcase the chandelier. She smiles. Grrrr. “Which would mean that Ondine, you would be going home”. Ondine manages to squeak out “OK” while Andrea looks a bit smug. “However”, cut to Andrea whose smile disappears, “it’s not our role to stand in your way if you want to go home – it’s up to you to decide”. Aaaaaaargh! Can’t. Type.

She agonizes and hems and haws and ums and ahs, which is the most articulate she’s ever been. Finally, she asks ONDINE what she thinks! Andrea’s a dickhead. When she finally decides – finally! – to go, she actually looks surprised when India says “So, Andrea, you are going home”. What a drama queen.

She thinks she’s proven herself as a designer. I think she’s proven herself to be a flakey Needy von McNeederson.

Bye bye, Andrea, you won’t be missed.

1 IMDb tells me that Ricky Schroder’s may have been filming The Andromeda Strain, which has Daniel Dae Kim! And Eric McCormack! Ricky’s popularity has gone down by 10% since last week but the movie has gone up 31%. I don’t really know what that means. It also has the following trivia: “Spoke at the Republican National Convention in honour of George W. Bush, 2000… Member of the National Rifle Association… He was absent from “NYPD Blue” (1993)’s May 2001 season finale and later announced he would not return to the show because he wanted to devote time to his growing family.”

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Injera has written her usual witty and comprehensive post on Top Design:

Six designers remain. Who thought Andrea would be one of them? Not me, that’s for sure. And, given that today’s challenge title includes the word “Future”, I’m punting that Andrea will struggle.

Nathan says he’s sorry that his roomie, Wisit, is no longer there, but what he’s really sorry about is how Eddie won the previous challenge by executing Nathan’s plan. Andrea misses her family. Preston reminds us of his devotion to his mom, again. India wears another variation of the orange caftan. It has some silver detailing around the neck, because “shiny” equals “future”, baby! In fact, we are time-travelling to 2108 for this challenge. 2108! That’s100 years from… last year. I guess we’re on a delay here. I wonder if there’ll be a problem with the time machine and we’ll end up on an island in the Pacific jumping through time? If so, there will be opportunities for all sorts of comedic mistaken-identity shenanigans with Preston/Sawyer. Jin will be the only one who’s not fooled.

Moving on! For some reason, Ondine – who is a set decorator – thinks this challenge will be hard. I think she’s deliberately setting expectations low, or else she’s a really crap set decorator. Or she only decorates sets in productions that only require representing the “now”. The designers have “raw, three-wall spaces”, paint, wall coverings and fabric, and carpenters. Before shopping, they will have 45 minutes to plan with their carpenters. Budget: $7000; time: 2.5 days.

Eddie has his concept right away: the lobby for The Golden Clone, a cloning agency. “No offence, everybody, but just because two people are really good-looking? Sometimes they have really busted kids.” He has really thought this through, even to the point of the height of his seating. You see, “with cloning, people are going to be much taller, we’re not going to have midgets”. Oh, Eddie, you really don’t understand cloning. Or sensitivity. But mostly cloning.

The editors ensure Andrea lives up to my expectations by showing her meeting with her carpenter: “I was thinking of this whole thing, right here [sketch of some sort of ugly arch]… I’m not sure exactly what…”. Thank god her carpenter is able to channel her vagueness. He is able to interpret her mutterings as “a sort of pod? Spaceship?” and they come up with pod-housing that moves and flies. It’s going to be pink and super-girly.

Ondine is thinking she wants something “modern”. What exactly does she mean by that? Modernist? Contemporary? Does she realise she’s now in 2108? Why are people suggesting fireplaces right off the bat? Ondine is thinking about “global warming” and is conceptualising a traditional living/dining room. Oooooh, her fireplace is a “cooling” fireplace. Fires of the future will be cooling!

Natalie goes straight to the Jetsons and flying saucers. I don’t think “creativity” means what you think it means, Natalie. She explains her concept, but I get confused when she starts talking about hydraulic systems. Her carpenter looks sceptical.

Preston and his carpenter are wearing matching outfits. That would be creepy if they had donned boiler-suits, but they look cute in black pants and black short-sleeved shirts. His overall concept is a hotel that travels through space. It’s going to be sophisticated.

Nathan’s idea is putting chairs in boxes and using a black colour scheme. I have no idea what he is thinking, but he has earned my trust, so I’m looking forward to seeing it come together.

Designers head to Jo-Ann’s Fabrics, which looks totally depressing. Eddie sums it up thus: “I’m kind of familiar with Jo-Ann Fabrics. It’s, like, gold Keds, and a stirrup pant with a sweatshirt that says “˜Grandma Loves Her Grandchildren’”. It seems that the 80s are a stopover en route to 2108. The titles reveal that Nathan’s concept is “Bachelor Pad of the Future”, so thanks to the titlers for clearing that up for me. Nathan goes straight for Styrofoam, and Andrea counts the time. Eddie’s walking around with foam. I want to know what Nathan has in store for the hat boxes he’s piled up.

On to Modernica, where they have 45 minutes and $4000 to spend. Ondine helpfully tells us that Modernica has iconic 20^th century pieces, which is an interesting choice for the 22^nd century, no? Andrea sees a marble table and decides to base the whole concept of her pod around that. The table itself is not shown, but I’m thinking that “marble table” and pink-girly-girl will be a stretch. Preston’s happy with his shopping and Eddie notes that Preston only ever does one room “the classic hotel look”. I’m reminded of one of the designers back in “Changing Rooms” days who made everything look like a New York Loft Apartment circa 1993, even if the house was federation and the couple wanted a rumpus room for their young kids. Ah, “Changing Rooms”. All we have left of you is Peter Everett on “Ready Steady Cook” and that’s a bad trade.

With four hours to work on their spaces, the contestants hit the paint. Eddie starts splattering red paint, and he references “American Psycho”. Cloning must be violent. I probably wouldn’t book myself in for a procedure if the lobby looked blood spattered. Ondine says that her vision for the future is actually a bit dreary. I don’t know if she means that she envisages a dreary future, or that she’s looked at her choices and realises that it’s drab. Natalie is shaking up a paint tin, and she’d better hope that India changes clothes when she comes to review the rooms, because that shade of orange will clash violently with India’s caftan. Nathan paints his space “domino black” and then sees that Preston has the same colour. Eddie thinks that’s hilarious! Nathan has the same taste as Preston!

Next shopping trip is Ikea. Ondine has a lot of experience with Ikea, as a set decorator, and she knows that an hour is not enough time there. Too true! If I were in this competition, I’d just grab a trolley full of cheap glassware and then head to the cafe for meatballs. In her rush, she drops something significant if the drums on the soundtrack are anything to go by. We have a zoom in and… it’s a piece of paper. Not just any piece of paper, it has the warehouse locations of all the large items she’s picked out. She’s running around and swearing.

Back to the workspaces for six hours. Preston and his carpenter are now wearing matching black t-shirts. Natalie’s place looks hideous and she realises it. Eddie contemplates being some sort of Dr Frankenstein and decides that his “Top Designer” creation would have Natalie’s boobs, Andrea’s body, Preston’s lips, Ondine’s eyes, Nathan’s height and a bit of everybody’s sense of humour. How scary. Is this what he thinks cloning is?

Todd time! Exclamation marks at 10 paces! “I love what you did by keeping it symmetrical!” “Classic form!” “That’s so cool!” “Daring!” “Bold!” “Brave!” He has no exclamation marks for Natalie. Her straight up use of Ikea chairs has completely defeated his enthusiasm.

The usual flurry-of-activity montage is interrupted when India comes in wearing a yellow caftan. Pop Design time! It’s been ages since we had one of those. It’s a pop quiz testing design knowledge and there’s immunity for the person who wins. A wrong answer equals exclusion. Over to quiz-master Jonathan. Eddie and Andrea are the first out for not identifying the “iconic” chair against the knock-off (from a picture). Natalie and Preston are next out. The winner, correctly identifying a vintage lamp as being more expensive than one of Jonathan’s own designs is… Nathan! Not that he really needs that kind of cheap immunity as I’m sure his design will get him through.

An hour to go and we’re back to the montage. Andrea’s “cabbage chandelier” falls down and Ondine is back to swearing. Oh my god, you guys, did anybody pick up on the fact that Andrea is missing home? She’s got to stop repressing those feelings. Let it out, once in a while, Andrea! Preston and Eddie try to get her to suck it up, but you can tell they are totally bored by having to do this EVERY WEEK.

Final 90 minutes. Eddie thinks his cloning centre is “a-may-zing”. We don’t get to see it yet, so I’m just going to take his word for it. He’s so honest and objective: “I’d love to clone myself. I’d get the job done so fast because there’d be 20 of me and I’d know exactly what I was thinking. I mean, I can’t get enough of me!” I think somebody has been doing some research on cloning.

With 17 minutes to go, Andrea is replacing her dramatic chandelier with an ugly white wicker shade, shaped like an oversized bell. Foul. Eddie’s helping her out. Ondine is swearing. She is so panicked that she spills black paint ALL OVER Eddie’s white furniture as she runs past. Eddie? Is really calm about it. I’d be furious. In the final five minutes, there’s rehydrating and candle lighting.

Judge patrol! Kelly Wearstler has pulled together a totally insane look with a purple ruffled dress and a green patterned turban and green beads. Did she do this because it’s nearly International Women’s Day? Well, it was IWD on Sunday, here in 2009, anyway. Next week, instead of “iconic potter” Jonathan Adler, can we have “magic Potter” Daniel Radcliffe, or “Miss Potter” Renee Zellweger? Or, better yet, Colonel Potter?

Natalie explains her concept (to illustrate the whole “hydraulics” thing, she has screwed a lever on a wall). It looks orange. The judges look amused/bemused. Ondine’s room lives up to the expectation of “dreary”. She has definitely put thought into what 2108 might bring, but it looks dull. I’m glad I’ll be dead. Jonathan’s happy with Eddie’s furniture plan. Nathan has repurposed a cat scratcher as a coffee table. Andrea’s doesn’t look at all futuristic. She seems to think “intercom” is cutting edge. Preston’s looks good but not very futuristic.

Contestants line up in front of the judges and are told that “this time” they will field questions. Preston gets a “colour” question which is pretty straightforward. Kelly thinks he might have overdone it by creating two “spaces”, but is happy overall. Nathan doesn’t get a question as such, but is able to agree with Kelly that his design could benefit from removing some accessories (she can imagine Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi having tea there together). Margaret doesn’t see the future in it. He’s safe, anyway. Okay, so the judges are not really asking questions, they are just commenting with rebuttal time. Nice “twist”, India. Ondine, once again, explains her “cooling fireplace” but is not asked how this works. I’m reminded of Karl Pilkington’s “inventions” like the “life countdown” watch. Jonathan doesn’t like Eddie’s colour scheme. Kelly thinks “Granny Gone Wild”. Natalie’s ideas are “fun”, apparently, but not well executed. India brings Andrea in by saying “last, but not least”, which is hopefully a lie. Jonathan reads more into Andrea’s scheme than is necessarily there. She blames Ikea instructions for her dull result.

Deliberations. Natalie: disappointing; talented but green. Hello, same thing each week! Andrea: addressed the problems of building in the future, according to Jonathan. Preston: perfectly finished every time. Eddie: has an answer for everything but still “granny”. Ondine: created a mood but not polished. Nathan: really futuristic, thoughtful, digging deep, comes close to being able to execute his big ideas.

Whose design will reign supreme? The winner of this challenge is… Preston. Really? So he and Nathan are safe, as is Eddie. Hugs all round for the guys. Natalie is told her Sci Fi starting point was good but didn’t work. Andrea is given credit for her great idea, but is told she played it safe (I preferred India’s description: twee). Ondine is told that she never brings it all together.

Whose design can’t we live with? Natalie’s. Andrea lives to moan about missing her family for another week. Natalie cries and it’s sad – she really is young and seemed to enjoy herself. Todd needs to take responsibility for withholding his exclamation marks.

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Injera has kindly done another fabulous recap on Top Design – the Eco Office. Check out her blog Injera for other examples of her quirky thoughts.

Top Design – Eco Offices

Seven designers remain! Who will be Senor (or Senorita) El Decor? We’ll be one step closer to knowing in an hour or so.

Eddie kicks off the episode by reassuring us all that, whilst he would like to win, his reputation as a designer doesn’t ride on it as he’s already successful. He works for Martha Steward Living, don’tcha know! Makes me wonder why he’s even doing this show. Natalie wants the judges to know who she is (apparently “funky, crazy and loud”) but acknowledges that they are always telling her to “edit, edit, edit”. Responsiveness to criticism, UR doing it rong, Natalie. Andrea self-deprecates boringly, as usual. We see, but don’t hear, Wisit, and Nathan and Ondine only hit the screen when the designers reach the studio. That is a total of six designers – what about Preston and his dimples?

Guest judge this week is Danny Seo – green lifestyle guru. He’s the “green designer” on the Today Show. Danny tells the designers to think about the “R” words and the list is a lot longer than I was expecting. Reduce, re-use and recycle were there, but there were more and I just glazed over a bit. “Be resourceful!” The contestants have to use everything they find in their office. As well as that, the “Top Design” showroom has a special “eco friendly” section for them to shop in. Eddie is a bit sceptical at the idea of using fabric remnants, if his curling lip is anything to go by. Each designer will have a client who will have their office redesigned to be Eco Friendly. Lucky them.

Paint chips are picked, office spaces are allocated, clients are met. Nathan finds his client’s office “disgusting”. The client brief is that the office needs to accommodate two people. That seems to be all. The client’s time in East Africa inspires a “harvest-y golds” palate. Nathan suggests applying the carpet to the wall to use as pinboards, which… seems like it might fit the “re-purpose” category, but is it necessary?

Let’s see what Natalie has to work with. A very similar, bland office with a young “very cool” woman. “Very cool” is Natalie’s take, so I’m not sure how accurately she has summed up her client. She looks way cooler than Natalie, but that’s hardly a stretch. Natalie’s assessment that the client “loves” her ideas (”bright blues” is “ideas”?) is undermined by the client saying “I’m not worried – it’s gotta be better than this”. Not resounding support, then.

Eddie walks into what appears to be a sparsely furnished small room. His client is perched awkwardly on a low filing cabinet or something. There is a small lamp in the corner. Eddie’s pissed off that he has to use “all the crap that’s in the room”. Wow, way to communicate with your client, dude. “This carpet is disgusting and everything about this room is disgusting“. What can the client do but agree? Especially since he’s “just a dork“. God, Eddie, nobody cares if you are too cool to create something a “dork” will consider “funky”. He riffs for a while about how much he hates the word “funky” and sniffs his fingers disdainfully to illustrate. He’s being gross. I have decided I hate Eddie and want him to crash and burn. And I want Martha to see. In fact, I want him to become the butt of jokes on “The Martha Stewart Show”. Martha will dress him in an apron and make him fetch things for her and then change her mind. She’ll send him on elaborate errands to trashy malls and make him interact with suburban people. She’ll make him recite a poorly-written rhyme at the end of each segment, to express how much he worships her ideas. Bert Newton and Belvedere will sue.

Wisit’s client has the most promising space so far: polished boards, so he won’t have to do any arbitrary re-purposing of carpets, and fairly inoffensive furniture. Of course, Wisit is not Eddie, so he would be polite and charming about his client, even if the place were decorated with macramé and hook rugs. He looks around the office and knocks a plastic basketball ring off a door, so I’m guessing that his use of the adjective “masculine” to define the brief means “blokey”. He hopes to be able to do it tastefully and elegantly.

Andrea’s task is to makeover a reception area into something “warm and welcoming”. The client seems to know exactly what she wants, so if Andrea responds to that she might be able to slip through to another week. Noooooooo! She gets the client to help her move a desk.

And we finally see Preston. His client, Joe, is an environmental consultant. He wants a blue palette because his work deals with water. How… charmingly literal? Preston is pleased. He is a literal man.

Ondine is also working with Joe, on the conference room. Their meeting is brief, but at least he is consistent with communicating his colour preference. He gives her a key. Why don’t the others get keys?

Shopping! It’s all about fabric remnants and (fortunately) the 45 minutes of scrabbling around is edited to a few brief scenes. Preston goes with blues and pinstripes because he “wanted sharp and clean, like a business suit”. He’s consistently literal, at least. Andrea has interpreted her client’s request for “warm earth tones” to mean “hippy chic”. Seriously. Prints and flowers. And maybe stripes. My head is aching in anticipation of the overstimulation. Eddie bitches that he’s having an “allergic reaction” to the remnants. Shut up, Eddie, it’s not dumpster diving! It’s not as though the fabric he describes as “left over from making Granny panties” would have been in contact with old ladies’ old lady bits. And it doesn’t make sense for him to be so dismissive about the hideousness of it – he should be thrilled that the “ewww” factor matches his opinion of his client. Synergy, no? Wisit is aiming for “masculine” but goes with beige and pale green colours, for an inexplicable reason.

More shopping! The “Top Design Showroom Green Area”, in which the designers have 30 minutes and $500 to spend. Nathan avoids furniture, since he’s going to use the existing stuff, so he seems to be picking up things like desk caddies and notebooks. Natalie, always mindful of the judges exhortations for her to “edit, edit, edit”, is looking for colourful and this search seems to be fulfilled for her by two “furry chairs”.

India appears when the clock runs down and orders the designers to line up in front of her. It’s just like kinder. It’s probably time for some apple quarters, milk and a nap. If that’s also what the contestants were thinking, they are in for a surprise. India’s sadistic streak emerges when she tells them that she wants to see how they handle more pressure. She tells them to get out the keys their clients gave them, so obviously Ondine wasn’t the only key-recipient. They pass keys to the right, which means they now have new offices and have to work with whatever the person on their left has bought. I’m hoping Eddie gets Andrea’s “hippie-chic”. Poor Wisit ends up with Natalie’s stuff, and he says it makes him nervous. He is a wise man. Eddie is lucky because he gets Nathan’s client, so he is horribly smug.

Designers now have an hour in their new spaces. Wisit hands over to Ondine and she experiences the cognitive dissonance of “masculine” and Wisit’s fabric choices. Natalie hands over to Wisit, who asks “did she say she liked zebra print?” and – surprise! – she didn’t, that’s just Natalie’s bad taste. Lucky, lucky Wisit. I love Wisit. Burning Natalie’s stuff is timeless advice. Natalie gets Andrea’s “design”, such as it would be. Andrea gets a bizarre edit of Eddie’s client – he’s funky and fun, apparently, and he wants the whole office painted a bright blue. Won’t Andrea be intrigued to see this episode when all’s said and done? Eddie then “accidentally” trashes a desk while trying to move it. I don’t know why somebody with his ego would bother trying to sabotage Andrea. If you can’t beat Andrea without resorting to gamesmanship, you don’t deserve to style covers for Martha. Eddie slavers all over Nathan’s choices and will probably do a great job of it. Nathan thinks Preston’s choices are okay, but conservative, and wants to make it more in line with his own style. I’m sure he’ll be able to do that. Preston gets the conference room to the office he was originally designing, which is probably an unintended development.

Carpenters and seamstresses next. Nathan’s got an idea of using sawhorses to make furniture, which sounds novel if a little impractical; Preston’s following the same ideas he had for before, which makes sense. Andrea’s chippy thinks her paint scheme will make the office look like a Tijuana nightclub. Perhaps El Decor will play there on Sunday afternoons and there will be half price Margaritas! Eddie’s using strange sounds and actions to communicate an idea about a lighting fixture he describes as “funky”. Funny how much he hated that word earlier. Wisit’s having trouble finding some fabric he likes, which is not surprising, given it was selected by Natalie.

Elimination day! Work has continued through the night, so the designers will be able to see how their creations are shaping up. If I were Andrea, I’d be afraid. Very afraid. Indeed, she finds the blue walls “shocking”. Nathan’s sawhorses are yellow and Natalie is upholstering bookshelves. Yikes. Apparently that makes it “art”. Ondine is making a water-bottle chandelier, to show how seriously she takes green design. Hopefully she “found” the water bottles and didn’t buy them especially. Back to Eddie, who helpfully explains that “OTT” means “over the top”. Gee, thanks for the PSA.

Five hours to go. Todd comes in to give some of his warm, exclamation-mark affirming feedback. “Wow!” “Great use of space!” “Really cool!” “That’s good!” “I applaud your decisions!” “That’s nice!” “What a lovely colour!” (Seriously, he said that to Andrea – I want whatever medication this man is on.)

Final speed edit of painting, cutting, slicing and dicing.

The clients come in to check on their designs and give some feedback. Funky dork “loves” everything, so SUCK IT, Eddie. Eddie is still being dismissive of Andrea. Natalie’s client wants recycling bins, so she’s got a few minutes to make those out of some MDF she has lying around. Andrea hates the panels – sorry, art - that Natalie made. Natalie thinks it’s “really stupid” that Wisit didn’t use her “fabulous fabrics”. Unfortunately for Wisit, his client sends a proxy to have a look at how it’s going, so he gets no helpful feedback there.

Time’s up.

Eddie admits that he took some of Nathan’s concepts, but claims to have “pushed it to the next level”. He does give Nathan props for his fabric and colour choices, though. Natalie cops to liking, and therefore using, Andrea’s floorplan, and draws attention to the hideous panels she made. Wisit echoes the judges “edit” vocabulary when describing what he’s done with Natalie’s choices. His office doesn’t seem to impress the judges with the “green-ness”. Ondine’s chandelier looks pretty good and she admits to confusion with Wisit’s choices. India looks shocked to learn that it’s a man’s office and that he wanted a “masculine” aesthetic”. Wisit might be in trouble. Nathan’s sawhorse desk looks good and he’s decorated the small space effectively. Preston’s looks boring but in line with what the client wanted and it does look like a conference room. Andrea’s Tijuana nightclub actually looks pretty inoffensive, although she’s put two strange large wooden boxes – are they lamps? – on a very small desk, so she clearly has no eye for practicality. She babbles and babbles in explaining her work and India and Jonathan look bored.

I don’t know why so many designers decided to chop up existing, serviceable furniture, to make “art”. Hopefully they’ll be pulled up on that in final judging, because that doesn’t seem to reflect eco-friendly design principles.

Judges chat. They have positive things to say about Andrea and Ondine. Jonathan thinks Nathan and Preston know how to decorate a whole room. Danny noticed how pointless Preston’s “recycling” bins were, though. Wisit does seem to be in trouble, and Natalie is “back to being unsophisticated”, which is a surprise only in that it indicates that she has – at some point – achieved something other than un-sophistication. Eddie’s work was “fabulous”, but the carpet on the wall idea was 100% Nathan, so I hope he gets credit for that.

Decision time! Three stood head and shoulders above the rest. Nathan, Preston and Eddie. Nathan looks more than miffed that Eddie doesn’t man up and give him the props for the carpet, but manages a big, warm smile when Eddie wins. Andrea and Ondine are safe. The judges give Wisit a pasting and his eco-choices are called “green-washing”. Natalie is criticised for making the office look like a condo and for making un-green choices by using MDF for her recycling bins. How ironic! Wisit’s body language says defeat and… his body knows what it is talking about. He’s sent packing and I’m sorry because he’s so lovely. Bye, Wisit, I’ll miss you and will be bitter next episode when I have to see more of Natalie’s random decorating and missing-of-the-point, and Andrea’s boring blandness.

Wisit sings us out.

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After last weeks great recap  by Injera she has kindly done another great one this week. Thank you Injera. Also if you feel like reading something different than reality TV check out her great blog Injera.

Top Design – Triathlon

Eight designers remain!  Who will be our Top Designer?

The first voice we hear is Eddie, hoping for an individual challenge so he can express his own creativity.  The second is to Teresa, last week’s dead wood, who observes that she’s “not being utilised as much as (she) could be”.  This seems to be both a dangerous sentiment – “utilised”?  really?  like someone else in the competition (one of your competitors, no less) should be deploying you to show your strength? – and a very early signal to this viewer that Teresa’s going to go home this week. Yep, you heard it here.  Two minutes in and I’m picking the loser edit from this week.  Am I right?  Are my spidey senses still well-tuned?

Wisit is having left-over meatloaf for breakfast.  Eeew.

We cut to Natalie who, at 24, is saying that she has accomplished a lot by being “head designer” at such a young age.  Like the caption, she doesn’t elaborate on what that position entails and where it is.  Her next comment reveals some insecurity, though, in that she feels she still needs to prove herself, so perhaps she’s head designer for Subway franchises.  Andrea misses her kids.  Based on my limited acquaintance with Andrea, I am confident in predicting that this is the most interesting thing she will say or do for the entire episode. 

Eddie calls all the designers to go, and they head out the door to the usual montage of LA buildings.  I love that they show Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall.  It kind of ensures that any “design” we’re likely to encounter from our contestants will be a let-down. 

India and her bronzer and jeans remind the contestants that they have been working in teams so far.  They are all polite enough not to say “duh”.  No doubt the designers will still act as though they are utterly side-swiped when she tells them that this week’s challenge is individual.  I’m amazed by this capacity for surprise at the obvious when they are able to remain calm in the face of such sheer craziness as the hat and extreme sleeves of judge Kelly Wearstler.  As India announces the individual Top Design Triathlon, eyebrows ratchet up, demonstrating the limited Botox budget.  It is a “gruelling” event, and designers will have their “creative vision, styling ability and versatility as a decorator” tested.  Teresa looks scared.  If it’s an individual challenge, who will make the decision on how to utilise her?  Nathan, on the other hand, looks pleased, however he describes himself as “definitely not a triathlete.  I’m a smokerlete”, which is not the standard of quip I’ve come to expect from him. 

India goes on to describe the challenge.  She clarifies the obvious (there are three legs), but the elimination details are ambiguous : “you must perform well in each leg, those who are in the bottom may face elimination”.   As a Phil Keoghan watcher of many years, I am always attuned to the “may”, but “those who are in the bottom”?  Bottom what?  Two, three, eight?  Come on, India! 

The first leg is the “chair leg”.  Boom-tish.  Natalie laughs at this limp pun as though her life depends on it.  The task?  Choose one of ten unfinished chairs and transform it into a “one of a kind” piece.  There are lots of fabrics, paints, wood and “many, many other tools”, and two hours to complete.  Kelly and her hat and sleeves realises that India has forgotten to introduce her, so leaps right in and tells the designers that they will be judged on their artistic vision and creativity.  Most importantly, winners of each leg get immunity.  Wow. 

Nathan heads straight for the chair he’s had his eye on (they are all different, hence the “choice”), but others go directly for fabrics.  Wisit goes for painting the existing, plain fabric, whilst Andrea worries about the tension between the judges’ desire for a “wow” chair and her own, simple, classic (yawn!) tastes.  She is heartened by the mess that is Teresa’s chair, though, so I think she’s hoping to scrape through this one as “not worst”. 

Lots of painting, sanding, stapling. 

Ondine is inspired by Betsey Johnson, which must mean “kitsch and tacky”.  Her chair is shaping up to be pink and pom-pommy.  She has the gall to suggest that Natalie’s is over the top!  Natalie says she’s “pushing the envelope”, but it doesn’t look that original – more Tara Dennis than Marc Newson, that’s for sure.  Nathan’s is royal blue paint and shiny, shiny gold upholstery.  I think I spy some paint stains on the upholstery.  He says it’s “very unique”.  No!  Not a modifier for “unique”! 

Eddie chose a Queen Anne and is updating that old “grandma” chair.  He’s also the self-appointed time keeper for this leg.  Even though the judges explicitly said they are after the “wow” factor, Eddie says he doesn’t want the “wow” factor.  He wants the “glam” factor and the “beauty”.  I want the difference between all of these explained to me, with diagrams.  He paints the frame a rather ugly yellow, but has done an amazing job covering the cushion with a silver fabric.  The ever-humble Eddie says: “I am working the best with what I have and, honestly?  It was perfection.”

We haven’t seen Preston at all, in case you were wondering.

Time’s up!

Preston’s is the first up for judging.  It’s very dark and shiny – black paint with blue velvet upholstery.  He sees it as a desk chair.  Nothing about that says “wow” to me.  He just gets nothing from the judges except “thank you”.

India asks Wisit if he picked the fabric or painted it.  There doesn’t seem to be a correct answer to this question.  If he says he painted it, he’s taking responsibility for creating a whole bunch of ugliness, and if he says he picked it, then his taste is questionable.  Hey, what do I know?  Sleeves McHat really likes the effect.

Eddie’s looks… oh, I’m not going to judge!  Let the experts speak!  India listens to Eddie rave about his creation, then seems to want to confirm that the hideousness was not only intentional, but is unobserved: “So you’re really happy with that?  And you could live with your chair?”  Her only comment is “it looks very finished”. 

Natalie joins Preston in getting no more than a thank-you.

Andrea looks panicked and with good reason.  Her chair is horrible.  Bland colours and a baggy upholstery job.  Yuck.  She’s honest about it, though (well, except for the “horrible” bit, that was mine.  Oh, and the bland.  In fact, she only really owns the upholstery error). 

Teresa’s also looks a bit grim and India just wants to clarify that “it reflects” her.  She says it does.  Is that body dysmorphic disorder or something? 

Ondine gets a positive from Sleeves for her risk taking “that worked”.  Good on her.

Nathan’s “speaks to (him) as fashion and art colliding as one and ending up in an interior space”.  Sleeves thinks it looks like an “important” piece of furniture.  I’ll take “important” over “finished” any day.

As the designers gather for the verdict, there’s a shot of Sleeves and I can’t even listen to what she’s saying – I’m too busy trying to figure out what is posture, what is clothing and what is her body.  Wow.  I wish I could do a screen shot.  Natalie’s is the first to be identified as Less Successful (”a remnant from a Vegas hotel, 15 years ago”), followed by Teresa (”it was just an upholstery job”).  They did, however, love Nathan’s (”one of a kind”, “loud, in a good way”) , Eddie’s (”a bold statement”) and Ondine (”iconic feel”).  Nathan gets the win, but is not going to give up and slack off for the next two legs. 

Second Leg!  Will they persist with the “leg” puns for the challenge titles?  Sadly, no.  Jonathan Adler is guest judge.  Now they are going to “design and style a beautiful dining table”.   It’s a “perfect microcosm of all the challenges of design, apparently.  “Composition, colour, texture, scale… taste”.  So, clearly “functionality” is not key to good design.  Let’s see what happens, shall we?

They have 30 minutes and $500 to spend in the showroom, then 2 hours to design the table.  Teresa acknowledges that she really needs immunity.  Natalie’s response to her poor performance in the “chair leg” is to choose a table that is “completely the opposite” of what she’d normally go for. 

Shopping!  Preston runs straight for flowers.  I hope he doesn’t accidentally get fake silk ones!  Eddie scoffs that this is easy for him.  He even does a “Pffft”.  Andrea’s looking at stove top espresso machine, for some reason, and Ondine deliberately chooses a fabric that she describes as “a palm tree on a plaid”.  This, after Jonathan stresses the importance of taste.  Natalie is playing it safe with white and silver. 

Time’s up and work begins.  Nathan, with nothing to lose, is taking a radical approach – sanding back his table to get a “bohemian hangout/seaside cottage” casual vibe. 

Painting, stapling, hive-of-activity shots.

Natalie shows that she is listening to judge feedback to “edit” her ideas.  She is the first contestant today to say she really wants to win, so I’m glad I wasn’t counting on this as my drinking game trigger.  She does, however, say it twice, with varying emphasis, so that would work for two drinks, right?

Preston is aiming for “mothers’ day in the Napa Valley”.  He’s hoping he can pull it off.  Seriously, Preston would have the love light shining in his mother’s eyes just by flashing that smile.  She wouldn’t even notice the fake flowers!   She would certainly not be an objective judge of good table design.

Andrea’s missing her family.  Who knew?  Her theme is… snore. 

Teresa is keeping time for this task.  She is painting plates.  What an excellent way to utilise her time. 

Eddie’s grandmother is his biggest influence in his decorating life.  I hope she wasn’t watching when he used the term “grandma” pejoratively in the previous challenge.  The things she did with tinfoil for thanksgiving must have been better in person, because they sound awful. 

Time’s up!

Teresa describes her table as “informal, somewhat Zen”.  Zen is not a catch-all descriptor for things-you-didn’t-do-well, lady!  There is nothing Zen about her table.  I’d go so far as to say that there’s nothing “Zen” about it, either.  She has eucalyptus branches stuck randomly in vases. 

Natalie’s table is a big mess – literally – of yellow flowers, stacks of blue and white crockery, two woeful white lanterns and some yellow glassware.  It’s apparently for a brunch that “is a little bit on the fancy side, but not too extreme”.  Jonathan hates the flowers, but thinks the rest of the table is “great”.  Well done, Natalie!

Eddie’s looks fab.  I’d enjoy eating at that table.  Jonathan likes it, too.

Andrea’s white on white, with perhaps a touch of pale blue, table is boring.  She did it for a “girly” birthday party for her daughter, but it looks more like a very plain wedding table.  She’s not winning “mom of the year” with this one.

Nathan’s looks awesome.  It’s very casual – he hasn’t even “set” the places” – and Jonathan and India are happy with it.

Flowers seem to be Preston’s undoing.  India thinks the table looks more like a “flower shop” than somewhere you’d sit for a meal.

Wisit sings!  India grabs the nearest glass to stop it from shattering (would that work?).  They are so blown away that they make no comment on his OK table.

Ondine’s mixed metaphors to describe her southern-garden- teaparty-afternoon-brunch are a good enough guide to the mish-mash that is her table.  Jonathan’s not happy.  He doesn’t see Ondine in the table.  She agrees that it’s not really her.

Judging!  Bad news first.  Ondine made “no emotional connection” with the table setting.  Preston’s was impractical. 

Stand-outs: Eddie and Nathan.  Again.  Of course.  Nathan wins… again!  Amazing.  He’s sure he will be poisoned by the other contestants.

Leg three is coming up, after the designers have a good night’s sleep.

Two lots of breakfast and bathroom scenes in one episode is really taking it out of me.  Eddie considers a top-two finish in the first two challenges to be a good omen.  Nathan is excited.  Can he make a clean sweep?  His bizarre top thinks “yes”!  And the continuity editors scream “no”!

Margaret Russell, the Editor-in-Chief of Elle Decor, is judging the… “breathtaking space” challenge?  They must take inspiration from nature to tell a story for a photo-shoot.  They are looking for “amazing” and are offering the opportunity to have it photographed for Elle Decor.  There’s fist pumping and applause.  The catch?  They are shopping at a garden centre.  Natalie has obviously never been to a garden centre.  “Plants!  That’s it!  Plants!”, she panics.  They have $1000 to spend in 45 minutes.

Nathan goes for cacti and succulents.  Eddie is up for statuary – bird baths and urns.  He wants to do “pretty”.  Teresa is going for a Zen space.  Of course she is.  Natalie grabs vintage planters to achieve a Martha’s Vineyard look.  Andrea wants an indoor-outdoor vegie patch.  What about Wisit, Ondine and Preston?  Who knows!  It’s quite possible that Preston rolled up into foetal position when gardens were mentioned and missed the shopping expedition altogether.

They have four hours to transform very plain “two-walled” spaces.  Wisit is attempting a “Springtime in a Parisian Apartment” look.  Good luck to him.  He has turf and blossoms to help.  Ondine is using Kelly green in what she describes as a 60s pop colour scheme (although I thought you’d need more than one colour to call it a “scheme”). 

I was just going to say that I’ll use “Zen” as my drinking game word next week, but then I remembered that I need Teresa to go home.  “Every concept is Zen.”  Bollocks.

Nathan thinks his looks really bad.  “Horrible.”  He is particularly depressed when Teresa tells him that they are doing the same colour finish.  Ha!   He changes tack immediately.  “Zen Buddha Palace?” he says, with a horrified shudder.

Preston’s painting stripes, and I’ve just realised that he kind of reminds me of Robert Plotkin from Project Runway, probably just because of Robert’s banal swimsuit with racing stripes, but also because they both seem so, well, dumb.  He’s doing it for grandma.

Andrea is making a boring garden and Eddie snarks that Teresa’s tobacco colours are giving him a smoker’s cough.  Natalie is doing it for her mum.

They finish for the day, with an hour left to finish in the morning.  The designers are relaxing and Eddie leads the bitching about Teresa’s design.  Andrea interviews that “Eddie’s great, but it’s really important for me to be around people who are genuine because I’m a genuine person”.  Genuinely boring is far less entertaining than witty, Andrea.

Preston’s looks awful.  Awful.  Teresa’s is… Zen.  God, I hope she goes home.  It’s foul.  She’s done nothing with the floor.  India seems to be trying not to laugh.  Wisit’s is busy and he’s painted furniture on the wall, but it looks quite pretty and holds together as a concept.  Nathan’s is a “transitional” space, with a Baja vibe.  I don’t think he actually had a plan as to where it worked with an actual house, but it looks ok.  Natalie gets some positive comments for a routine job.  Ondine’s is all Kelly green with white furnishings and it’s certainly striking.  Andrea’s has nothing on the walls.  It’s just a garden.  The judges like Eddie’s, but think there’s still something granny there.  That really hurts!

Final judging.  I didn’t recognise Sleeves McHat in a cocktail dress and big – no, enormous – hair!   Natalie’s worked, “mindful and thoughtful”.  Eddie’s – polished, but no wow factor (and they hit him with “granny” again).  Preston’s chair was beautiful, but the overall room was complacent.  Wisit took it in the direction they wanted and had lots of ideas.  Nathan just threw a bunch of stuff in; boring.  Ondine hasn’t wowed in the triathlon; dishevelled.  Andrea’s was a mess.  Teresa’s plant choice was nice but the room wasn’t cohesive; “where you wait for valet parking”. 

Bring “˜em in! 

Who won the final leg?  Natalie!  Natalie?  Huh.  There’s no tension for the overall winner;  it’s gotta be Nathan.  They leave with their immunity, and with the unanswered question of “who gets photographed for Elle Decor” hanging over their heads (this goes unresolved).  Preston, Eddie, Wisit and Ondine are all safe. 

It’s between Andrea and Teresa.  Teresa gives us another couple of Zens in her final interview.  Who’s going home?  It comes down to the fact that the judges recognise that Teresa does everything “Zen”, but doesn’t do it well, and Andrea is bland.  So?  Who is it?  C’mon! 

“Teresa, we cannot live with your design.”

Next week, I’m hoping Andrea goes, followed by Natalie, then Preston.  But, even more so, I’m hoping that the contestants stop being so NICE to each other.  I need some interpersonal drama.

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Injera who writes her own fabulous blog has kindly agreed to write guest posts on Top Design the show where interior designers compete to be the top designer. If you have Arena TV and like reality TV watch it – it is fantastic.

Here is Injera’s recap on last nights episode:

Top Design – Bachelor Pad

“We cannot live with your design”.   Now there’s a phrase I’ve been wanting in my repertoire.

So, nine designers remain.  And what are they hanging about for?  Glad you asked.  The prize is $100,000 and a spread in Elle Decor magazine (which I heard as “El Decor”, a glossy dedicated to the whimsical stylings of a taco joint).  Oh, and – most importantly – “the right to say they have the Top Design^TM“.

Remaining: Nathan, Teresa, Preston, Shazia, Ondine, Natalie, Wisit, Eddie and Andrea

We watch Preston eating his breakfast and voicing over about how fulfilling he’s finding this (the show, not the breakfast).  He’s got a real gift for punctuating trivial statements with portentous pauses, which almost trick me into thinking he’s about to say something astonishing.  Then I get distracted by his sloping shoulders and start thinking about Josh Holloway on “Lost”, so the rest of his VO is just blahblah.

Wisit laments Kerry’s recent elimination and helps out this first time viewer by alerting me to Shazia’s potential hopelessness, opining that she should have gone home instead.  We cut briefly to Shazia, who owns “Egospace Interiors”.

The designers, having finished their breakfasts and helped each other clear up, file into the workspace where India Hicks and her chipper accent and bright yellow kaftan greet them for their next challenge.  As she describes their new clients (”desperately need your help”, “stumped when it comes to design and decoration”), the camera pans across our eager contestants, who take turns demonstrating the mobility of their eyebrows.  When the identity of the client is revealed – “That’s right, designers!  You’re going to be working with bachelors!” –  there’s a smattering of applause and some laughter and “yay!” (sincere-sounding) and “yay” (ironic), but not from Shazia.  Shazia happens to know a little something about bachelors.  “Bachelors are disgusting individuals.”  She spits.  “They’re gross… gross, gross, gross.”  She includes her fiancé in this set.

Nathan doesn’t think so.  He’s thrilled at the prospect of working with a single man he can potentially flirt with.  He’d better get some botox before meeting his client – the evil eyebrow raising will give him away immediately.  The glint in his eye tells me that he’s actually considering growing his moustache longer, just to give him something to twirl. 

In come the bachelors!  Obi, James and Eddie are generic  TV-show-cutish-but-not-hot.  Now, that’s just my opinion – I’m sure Nathan might think otherwise.

The designers will be working in teams of three.  Nathan purses his lips, evaluatively. 

“Let’s pick some paintchips!”  India’s delivery is making me regret the limitations of the available forms of punctuation.  Most of her sentences end in something that’s a little more than a full stop, but not quite an exclamation mark.  An exclamation stop, perhaps? 

Eddie is thrilled to have picked “heart-throb red, again!”, and even more so to be joining up with Ondine and Natalie for this challenge.  He is wearing a polo shirt with a popped collar and is the Senior Style Editor at Martha Stewart Living Magazine.  How will Martha feel if he wins and has a spread in Elle Decor?  Doesn’t anybody ever consider Martha?

Nathan is all “here we go again”, literally.  He’s not happy to be grouped with “Bad Luck Mary” in the Green team.  Anyone?  Anyone?  It’s Shazia, who clearly is out of favour with the producers.  She’s getting the complete loser edit tonight.  Their client is Eddie.  Will Nathan be able to flirt with Eddie?  Well, he’s going to give it a red-hot go: “I think ‘WOW!’.  Who’s this guy wearing a chic suit, tight, tailored perfect, top stitching, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous”.  Nathan could understudy Christopher Guest for the role of Corky St Clair in a stage version of “Waiting For Guffman”.  In fact, why isn’t this happening already?  It’s got to be a better idea than “Legally Blonde”.  Oh, and Preston/Josh-Holloway-shoulders is the third person in this team, in case you were wondering. 

Andrea is pleased that her team (Blue – Wisit and Teresa) is working with Obi as “he looks like he’s got good personal style”.  And maybe he has, but she must have a sort of designer super-power to be able to figure that from a hoodie, dark pants and white sneakers.  Maybe it’s his Jedi magic.

Over in the Red team, Natalie is jumping to all sorts of conclusions about the design tastes of her client, James, based on the fact that he’s wearing a long-sleeve/short-sleeve T-shirt combo.  At least, I think that’s what sets her off wearily imagining his lit-up, Miller High Life sign. 

The budget?  $10,000.  I think Natalie will be able to buy lots of beer paraphernalia with that.  They have 2 ½ days, and the services of “painters, carpenters, wall-paper-hangers and seamstresses!”.   Eddie is particularly thrilled like this and I really feel him, here.  Nobody likes to have hands that feel like a “Polish potato farmer during the famine” (although, if he means the hands of a potato farmer, I would’ve thought that a famine would mean less digging for potatoes, more time for manicures?).

The Red team checks out their bachelor’s pad, in West LA.  They like the space, but Eddie is a little judgey about the fact that James has a flat screen TV “for his Nintendo, mind you”.  They ask him what he wants, and then interrupt to tell him that he wants something sophisticated “for girls”, cosy and less sparse.  His place does look like a series of cells, so “less sparse” is a no-brainer.  Eddie boils it down to “panty-dropping chic”.

Over at the Blue team, client Obi is all about the energy flow and his brief is boiled down to “he’s super cool and wants a sort of Asian/modern/Zen/feng shui”.  Don’t forget The Force! Teresa is either really dull and is being overlooked by the producers, or is playing one of those boring “under the radar” games.  Either way, when she spoke for the first time I was all… huh?  Who?  Obi has even picked out some ideas from “Elle Decor” (and it’s not a plastic cactus with a sombrero) and they all giggle excitedly. 

The Green team checks out Eddie’s pad, which is summed up as a “disaster area” by Nathan.  The man is harsh!  It’s not great, but it’s exactly that kind of place you get when you have more money to spend in rent than you have time to put together enough Ikea to fill it.  I think we’ve all been there.  Haven’t we?  Preston and Nathan are going to get into a total flirt-off here.  Preston clicks with Eddie’s style (simple, classic, conservative) and it’s obvious that Nathan is totally turned off by the wall-o-shoes right inside the door, but he feels he’s got to persevere with his initial evil “flirt to the top” plan.  Shazia jumps straight in with Preston. 

Back to the Blue team, where Andrea thinks Obi is Burberry and Wisit wants to go “a little bit more Urban – a little bit Kanye West”.  Wisit is also thrilled that Obi likes Asian-inspired furniture, so let’s hope he capitalises on that.  Teresa feels left out.

The Red team is “creating a beautiful haven of good design”, according to Eddie.  Can’t wait to see how that turns out…

The Green team is going for clean, tailored and contemporary.  It’s all about Preston, but Shazia wants to be heard, dammit!  And she’s drawn her battle lines – it’s the placement of the TV!

 Furniture shopping!  Eddie finds a cabinet to fit James’ flat screen – he hopes it fits, but figures that the equation James is working on is “the bigger the screen, the bigger the boobs”, which took me longer than it should have to understand.

The Green team is living up to Nathan’s promises of dysfunction: Shazia’s running around the bedding department screaming “where are you?” and complaining about her voice not being heard (beautiful editing!).  Finally, in a line from Act 2 of “Waiting for Guffman – the Broadway Musical”, Nathan VOs that Shazia is “just, like, Needy Von McNeederson”. 

Teams then head to The Container Store and CostPlus World Market for some more competitive shopping: they have half an hour to spend $1000, according to the white teeth of Wisit.  There’s lots of grabbing of towels, baskets, hampers, and then there are tradie meetings.  Unfortunately it is at this point that Eddie uses the word “cool” to describe his concept of a “faux fireplace mantle”.  No Eddie.  Nothing about that idea is cool.  It is as far from “panty-dropping” as I can imagine. 

Maybe it’s because Nathan has put Christopher Guest into my head, but I’m hoping that the Blue team’s rather casual “no, I think 18 inches is enough” for the depth of the feature “entertainment centre” is going to come back and bite them.  In the Green team, watch for any blame shifting if they lose because of Shazia’s “cornice boxes”.

In the final leg of shopping, the Red team knocks over an ugly vase and tries to dispute the time-honoured “if it gets broken, consider it sold” tradition.  Eddie is incensed that something that would be $5 at a thrift store is tagged at 100 bucks, and I’m sure the shop is similarly incensed that a good promo opportunity for them was squandered by Eddie’s clumsiness.  As he tries to haggle over the price, he actually pulls the “I am the Senior Style Editor at Martha Stewart Living… I am a professional and I work for the best”.  Shazia is thrilled that someone else is taking the fire for once.

It’s time for Tom Oldham, the Design Mentor, to come and give some feedback.  He uses lots of positive language and has obviously suffered through the same “feedback protocols” training as I have (although, unlike me, he doesn’t appear to be bitter about it and is incorporating it into his professional life.  Good on you, Tom!).  “What a nice blue colour you’re doing there!”  “Oh, it’s a sophisticated colour palate!  I like it!”  “Oh, perfect!”  “Great!”   “That’s a great lesson for anybody at home, too!”  See, I’m not even the slightest bit conflicted about appropriate punctuation for Tom!

Wha’?  I thought we already had the last shopping challenge…  Ohhhhhh.  It’s a “Pop Design” challenge (and thank you to the first-time-viewer’s-friend, Natalie, for expositing that “a Pop Design is like a pop quiz – you never know when it’s going to pop up”).  The designers have to create a flower design and the winner will get immunity.  Shazia reallyreallyreallyreally wants to win immunity, but what’s the bet all the contestants feel the same way?  BUT!  Shazia used to be a florist and she’s planning her wedding, so she will totes win this one.  Eddie feels his is perfect and Preston throws silk flower petals all over the place before realising that they are not real flowers (and he hates silk flowers!).  Andrea gets NO feedback from the judges for her very boring, very suburban white flower arrangement and can’t figure out why. 

Least faves for the judges?  Natalie – garish, too big.  Preston – “fails on, kind of on every level! ”

Faves ? Nathan – chic, restrained, pretty.  Eddie – beautiful.

Winner?  Nathan!  Yay!  Shazia hates that he won and thinks Nathan will now sabotage the team to get rid of her.  Paranoid, much?

The teams are back off to finish up their pads.  Ondine starts sticking posters of snakes and other creatures on James’ wall.  She calls this “decoupage”.  I’m not Crafty von McCrafterson, but I don’t think this is actually decoupage.  I do think it’s a big mistake.

Shazia complains that Preston is being a dick, the pad is not really coming together and that the cornice boards are taking longer than she anticipated. 

30 minutes to judging!  Lots of cleaning-product placement aaaaaaand…. time!

Jeff Lewis is the guest judge.  He’s America’s most well-known “house flipper” and a bachelor.  Things I’d want on my headstone. 

They look around the Red team pad while Eddie narrates.  The decoupage looks foul and there is some strange drapery going on over venetians – I know!  I don’t get it – and Eddie passes the credit for the “panty-dropping” phrase over to the client (and I wish I’d stop accidentally typing “panty-dripping”).

Blue team!  Wisit describes their pad as “not something that would embarrass a man among his friends, or in front of a woman”.  So – it’s safe.  Safe and booooooooooooring, although I’m sure Obi can liven it all up with his super charisma. 

Green team (and, remember, Nathan is immune).  Blank faces pretty much all over.  Client-Eddie, however, loves it – except for the paint job in the living room.

Obi likes his.  No, loves it.

James doesn’t express much of an opinion on his place, except that he might throw the decoupaged screens over the balcony.

Judging!

Top design?  Andrea, Wisit and, um, whatsaname.  Sophisticated and practical, warm, rich environment.  They get to go.  Teresa interviews that it was Andrea and Wisit’s win, so is obviously embracing being driftwood here.

Red team – great ideas, but your client didn’t like it.  So, Ondine steps up with the excuse that James didn’t give them a lot of information.  Rewind!  This is the team that was thrilled to have a client happy to “leave it to the professionals”.  Guest judge Jeff tells Red that they need to know a little something about men.  Eddie burns.  And Ondine?  Your wallpaper?  “This is called Top Design, right, not Over The Top Design?  Margaret says that the decoupaged screens would make her question whether this was a “straight” bachelor.  I’d be questioning whether he fitted a serial killer profile.

Blue team.  Basically, they’re told it’s boring and asked to explain why.  Preston steadies himself to throw Shazia under the bus in 3, 2, 1… and – yes!  The cornices.  In answer to the “who was the team leader” question, Nathan and Shazia point fingers at Preston so quickly that he doesn’t even have time to “step up”, which is what he tries to say he did.  Shazia doesn’t realise that she should just shut her mouth and pretty much puts herself right there in the firing line by going on and on and on.  Right from the start of this episode, she’s had the loser edit, so there should be no surprises here.

It’s between Ondine (India: Just for the decoupage?  Jeff: I hate it that much) and Shazia (Preston gets a boost for standing up and taking the team leader mantle… which was shoved onto his shoulders by the rapidly retreating Shazia and Nathan, and the judges are clearly disgusted by Shazia).

“Shaz, we cannot live with your design”.

Shazia’s interview is all about expanding the opportunities for Pakistani women, who are “meant to be doctors, lawyers or engineers, or – better still – marry a doctor, lawyer or engineer.”  Wonder what her fiancé does…

Bye, Shaz.

Line of the night “I was channelling my inner masculinity (giggle)” Wisit

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David Heimann - Daily Telegraph

 

David Heimann, the owner of interior stores Orson & Blake has been named host and mentor on Channel Nine’s new reality TV show Home Made.  It is a bold move by Nine as David has no previous TV experience. I am loving there is going to be some fresh talent  on TV this year, this follows on from Channel Ten’s decision to make another unknown Sarah Wilson as host of Masterchef Australia.

The Daily Telegraph  reveals Home Made will have up and coming interior designers competing with each other as they work with real clients – families in the suburbs looking for a professional interior makeover. I am presuming this is an elimination show and the last one standing will win some fabulous prize.

Heimann denies the show is a copy of popular US show Top Design.

He points out that “Top Design only works with sets whereas here there will be real clients,”. Personally I am not seeing a huge amount of difference, but really who cares, Top Design which is shown on Arena TV is a fantastic and entertaining show.

Season 2 of Top Design  premieres on Arena TV on Monday 19 January at 9.30pm. The second series will not have first season host the serene Todd Oldham, but model and designer India Hicks. Todd will continue on as an occasional mentor.

India Hicks

The Futon Critic has an interview with India Hicks about Season 2 where she mentions the differences between series 1 and 2.

“The main different is going to be that we are really designing outside of the box. I mean, quite literally this time. On Season 1 they were designing inside these white boxes and this time we’ve taken our kids out in to real places and real settings.”

The shows sound pretty similar to me. I think Channel 9 could be on a winner with this one.  Oh and if they need volunteers to have their houses  made over, my Ikea chic house could do with a bit of razzle dazzle.

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