Dooce’s Recap: Oh, Humility. Where Art Thou?
Welcome to a Dan-less Design Star. Can it be the same? Who will build Nina’s projects? Who will we ogle? Oh, right! Courtland! PHEW!
We find ourselves at the New York Fire Department Training Facility, and Genevieve Gorder announces that Chief Ciarvino of the FDNY is going to help judge this week’s challenge. She then mixes up the teams: Michael, Emily, Casey and Alex become the blue team. Nina, Stacey, Courtland and Tom become the red team. Can I just say this before we go on? Hey, Courtland: NINA IS BOHEMIAN. I just want you to see that one coming.
The challenge this week is to design a common space for real firefighters in real New York City firehouses, some place they come back to in between calls, some place where Chief Ciarvino says they can relax. Each designer is to incorporate one signature element into the team design, something, anything to express each individual’s voice. Wait a minute; it’s coming to me… I see… I see… I SEE A MURAL! ON A WALL!
The teams get dressed up in full firefighter gear and visit a simulator where they experience a real fire. It roars up over the ceiling, and Chief Ciarvino is like, if it gets too hot just raise your hand! I don’t know why that made me laugh so hard, maybe because I can bet these designers had no idea that NEAR DEATH was part of this series.
The red team visits Engine 5 where they are told cardiovascular health is very important to the firefighters’ job and they could use exercise equipment. They also need a training center and a place to relax. The firefighter then shows them that behind the horrifying drop ceiling is an extra five feet topped by gorgeous tin tiles. Tom declares this will be his signature element, to raise the height of the room and give it the character that is the history of the firehouse. I really like his idea, and if he pulls this off right, it could be magnificent.
Nina immediately jumps on the task of ordering the furniture because she is better than her group and they can learn from her. Oh, humility. Where art thou? And then Tom loses his mind and suggests taking down a wall causing an almost knock-down fight between him and Courtland. And there’s swearing and accusations of attitude and name calling, and boy, do I ever love drama. I tell you what. Mommyblogging has nothing on designers.
Over at Squad 18, the blue team is shown their giant, blank room where the firefighters conduct drills, both physically and with educational materials. They are faced with the monumental task of painting mile-high walls and an awful green linoleum floor. I hope they don’t paint themselves into a corner! HA HA! Ha. Ha. Not funny? Come on. Indulge me.
Turns out they have to put a thick coat of polyurethane on the floor in order to keep it from peeling off, and they run out of time on day one. Meaning they have to do that part of the project the following day and wait several hours for it to dry. This could be curtains for these guys, waiting for THE ENTIRE FLOOR to dry. Looks like they really did paint themselves into a corner! HA HA! SEE?!
Casey and Michael tackle the floor on day two while Alex and Emily tackle Emily’s signature piece, a coffee table that is a tribute to firemen. There is a blonde joke in here somewhere as she fumbles around the wood and is all, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING. She just wants to make sure it doesn’t look like a little kid tried to make a table… um…yeah. Those letters. Looks exactly like something my six-year-old would bring home from kindergarten.
GONG!
Back at Engine 5, Sears shows up to deliver everything the team ordered: an elliptical trainer, a treadmill, a 30-inch plasma TV, a 50-inch plasma TV, a couch, a recliner and so forth. That is a ton of stuff, and the firefighters deserve it, but it might be hard to see individual design elements beyond all this stuff. That’s my major worry for this team, insofar as I have yet to hear Nina talk about a wall mural.
Back with the blue team, and the polyurethane hasn’t yet dried. In the meantime, everyone is trying to work on their signature elements. Casey is painting a large canvas of the silhouette of a fireman to provide color and interest to the room. Alex invents plastic shoes so that he can walk across the floor and get started on his project, the silhouette of the city skyline on the wall. Now, the judges may ding two silhouettes in one room, but I like the continuity.
Stacey, with the red team, is focusing on the personalization of the room by bringing in the number of the fire station. Courtland cuts out the number five that she glues to a brass circle, something to echo a brass lamp she brings in. Courtland then starts banging out a black-stained wooden entertainment center, his signature piece, wherein he nails the planks vertically on the wall: “I went with the wood element because it’s a very manly element. It’s rough, it’s tough, but yet it’s beautiful at the same time.” Oh Courtland, you poet.
The polyurethane has finally dried over at Squad 18, and Michael starts to attack his piece, a desk/TV/shelving unit. And as he’s rushing to get it built, he shoots a nail into his thumb. No, let me repeat that. HE SHOOTS A NAIL. INTO HIS THUMB. An inch-and-a-half nail shot about an inch into the top of his thumb. There is blood! GORE! There is an ambulance! Finally! You can’t really have a show about design without an ambulance, can you? What fun would that be?
Back with the red team, and Nina is talking about singular moments in art. And what is this? What? She’s creating functional wall art, a cork board cut into several squares that are nailed to the wall in the form of the words pride, commitment and service in Braille, to stress the things people don’t see in the work firefighters do. You guys, she’s doing a mural on a wall. This can’t be happening. Oh, but she went to art school and knows what she’s talking about. Do they teach self-awareness in art school?
Michael’s team steps it up, and Alex builds his project for him, even though every piece of wood is cut to the wrong size. They finish their room as Tom over on the red team paints the ceiling black to cover up imperfections. Another challenge complete. Another mural on a wall.
The judges walk through, and the blue team has created a bright, soothing space with well-planned furniture placement. I love the color of the walls, and again, I think the two silhouettes are perfect complements to each other. The red team’s space is very club-like with dark furniture, a dark ceiling and a dark wooden wall. I know which one is my favorite, and it’s not the one with the Braille on the wall.
They gather everyone together and announce the winner is… the blue team! YAY! And the designer who impressed them the most: Casey. They loved her fireman silhouette. Casey later admits Alex was instrumental in their win having taken over for Michael in a pinch. I have to say, I love this team work. This is how things should work when you’re forced to cooperate with other ideas. Excellent work.
The red team heads back to record their host presentations and then convene in front of the judges. Vern assures them the firefighters loved the space, and then the designers are given a chance to explain their design to Candice, who couldn’t be at the walkthrough. The designers cannot gush enough about how happy they are about the space, when Vern, I mean, THE HULK, informs them they turned in “a big fat zero.”
Uh oh!
He says the judges could barely contain their anger when they walked through the space, their disappointment was monumental. The firefighters liked it, yes, but it was mostly the stuff they liked. Vern can’t believe a group with that much talent produced what they did, and even goes on to say, “I wanted to vomit.”
Yeah, that’s never a good critique, unless you’re testing out different food poisonings.
The black ceiling? It made the room smaller and conjured dark emotional feelings. The black wooden planks? Hello, CHARRED WOOD. And the Braille art installation? According to Genevieve: “All I saw was cardboard put up like a bad eighth-grade craft project. No offense to eighth graders.” HEY-OHHHH! Nina also did a poor job in planning the space of the room. The recliner couldn’t even recline.
Bottom two: Courtland and Nina, deservedly. Nina’s host presentation seems incredibly tired, like she filmed it after studying all night for a test in Braille. It almost feels like she’s given up. And then Courtland’s is all IN YOUR FACE, full of energy, waving his arms all over the place, up and down, totally playing up the homeboy accent. A lot more awake than Nina’s. Like, maybe he’s had a gallon of coffee.
And the designer eliminated this week: NINA. They felt her energy had been sapped as well, and as she leaves the building she says, “I have a lot of charisma, a lot of personality and a lot of people can’t handle that. But in my life, in my world, I’m living in the Nina show.” Oh, you guys, I am going to miss her!
Ding dong the wicked witch…… the wicked witch…… the wicked witch………Ding dong the wicked witch is dead!
LOL!!! Love it Billy Bob!!! I was never going to watch the show again if they didn't eliminate her! Her design idea was just plain stupid. I'm a firefighter too and I'm ALL woman and I thought her idea was just dumb. We are not blind and would have NO CLUE as to what that design was about. And it was for pictures? We don't have pictures hanging up on little squares. A dry erase board or something, but those squares were pointless. I hope they were able to go back in and fix the space. It was way better than what they had before though!
My nephew is a paramedic. The squares were *cardboard* hotglued on top of a much larger piece of painted corkboard. I cringed when I saw it. hasta la vista, baby!
My favorite BB I've seen is a perforated metal mesh on top of foam core. You can use magnets *or* pushpins. and, they come in colors.
LOL!!! Agreed!!!
Amen to that. I hope we never see Nina on TV again.
I laughed out loud several times at "Mr. guy's guy Courtland " trying to act masculine. What a putz.
OK…the one good thing this week is Nina is gone. But the disappointing part more than the terrible new format is VERN YIP! I'm sorry…but his final statement telling the contestants to "Get Out"?!?! Are you kidding me? You can't even keep your own show on TV. This negativity from the judges is outrageous. Granted…the designs did suck. But you don't talk to adults in this fashion. Shame on you HGTV for this needless drama.
I agree, I hate this new format too. I wish it would go back to the way it was when David won.
unfortunately, this whole season seams to be geared toward people with a PHD in design.
So what if there aren't great design elements. Shouldn't the goal be to create a space that the client loves? Instead of a design worthy of the cover of Architectural Digest?
Some good points billyjobobb. Remember in the beginning, when there were contestants who didn't have their own design studios and tons of degrees in design? I liked that.
I have yet to see a Architectural Digest design. If you mean PHD as Phony, Hyped and Disastrous thats this year.
just based on the items they use, you can tell that they're shopping in galleries. Nothing coming from Wal Mart.
How about giving them a Wal Mart challenge. Go design a room spending $500 at Wal Mart?
First of all. Good job getting rid of Ms. Squiggly Lines, it is about time. Next I was not impressed with any of the designs this week. I think Candice skipped out on purpose so that she would not have see such a mess. I don't think this group has a design star. The producers of the show should have done a better job in picking the finalist. But I will continue watching this season.
Next and on another note and another network. Food Network- terrible decision tonight, no way Briana should have been eliminated. Little Ms. Italy should have been gone and Herb has been terrible for the last 2 or 3 weeks. Furthermore you lost me as a viewer. And the reason I am blogging about food network on HGTV' s web site is because FN's webpage sucks too.
Hey! How about a spoiler alert next time!? I don't come to these boards to read about other shows.
ok thanks for the totally off topic remark!
OH. MY. GOD.
Vern – "Get out of here"
No Vern, YOU get out of here, and take your attitude and candle sconces with you.
Are you kidding me HGTV? This is humiliating and disgusting. Where is that little thing…oh I can't remember what it's called, oh wait………RESPECT!???!
I sure hope the producers of this season read this blog!!! Not a whole lot of good comments at all! Nobody likes the format or the judges with ATTITUDE!! They are downright rude and disrepectful!
Yes Vern is awful. I've never seen his show. And if it comes on, I will never watch it.
EXACTLY RIGHT. There is no cause, none at all, for Vern to show adamant disrespect to the designers. Talented or not, they did their best and were always very courteous and respectful to the judges. Respect is a two way street.
Do you not realize that this whole thing is scripted and the judges are doing and saying exactly what they are told to do. Did you not see the manipulation and editing of the video last year. Give Vern and the rest a break they're like the rest of us at work, doing what we're told to do.
Note to the HGTV.
Maybe next season you should change the prize.
Hand out a hundred grand or something, but the "your own show" thing seems to have run it's course?
There's nobody here that I want to see a show from.
I agree that this year nobody stands out; Your right, a $100,000 grand prize is enough
I TOTALLY agree!
These are the biggest bunch of losers I've ever seen. By the way does anyone know what happend to that one woman who won (Jennifer?) the 3rd season or something, I've never seen her show, did it ever air? And what happened to Kim Myles? Was her show cancelled?
Jennifer got pregnant, gave birth to a special needs child and told HGTV that she had other priorities.
I don't know if these guys have been given the opportunity to step up to the plate and design…. Maybe they should be able to do a room by themselves or paired… I think what would be cool is to turn them loose with a very limited budget and actually see who can create a space with little resources… Also, I really liked the season where you helped families with rooms…. But maybe thats just not New York….
Bring back the INDIVIDUAL design… the team format is getting VERY unwatchable, too much bickering- too little design and the same thing every week!
You and RAS are absolutely right. It is time to see what EACH contestand can really do. That will only be accomplished with individual challenges. I really think the constant team challenges are why no one seems to stand out to viewers (yet).
It was awesome to see Nina be eliminated from Design Star. She is a one trick pony. I know Nina from high school and her personally was terrible even then. She is a very stuck up person. She has been throwing everyone under the bus ever since high school. I tried to be nice and treat her like a human being but she shoved me and my crew away for no reason. She is not a team person and that was part of her downfall on the show. Nothing changes 10+ years later. Most of Bay Ridge Brooklyn will be happy to see you gone. I am going to have a shot of Jameson right now just to celebrate. Good luck especially to Alex and Casey. I hope you are the final 2.