Posted on 06/02/2003 7:03:52 AM PDT by Chancellor Palpatine
The instant she opened her eyes -- after two grueling days and nights of giving her neighbors' kitchen a facelift -- Ruth Nelson was stunned by her own tarted-up Alexandria living and dining rooms. "I love it," she blurted as TV cameras recorded the moment.
Trouble was, she didn't.
A wall, once eggshell, was painted four-alarm scarlet. Two print sofas were obscured under hastily made off-white slipcovers with exposed seams stitched in black and red. A poster-size photo of her teenage son, Chris, showed only his chin; another just part of the family cat. Also baffling were 24 fluttering gold and silver paper squares pinned like insect specimens to said red wall.
Designer Genevieve Gorder, a regular on "Trading Spaces," the wildly popular TV decorating show, called the look edgy on the episode that aired in November 2000.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
So9
I love the TLC show "While you were out".
The worst I saw - I don't remember the designer - but the redid a bedroom. They made the bedspread out of astroturf and attached to it some cheap plastic flowers. Astroturf!! They fenced the bed completely off with a white picket fence. You had to step over the picket fence to get to the bed. They also did a weird patch of gravel in the room. It was hideous, and stupid, and the designer had to have been high. If I was working on my neighbor's home and some stoned designer said we were turning the entire bedroom into a fake flower bonanza and putting astroturf on the bed I wouldn't have cooperated. In the reveal you could tell that the couple HATED it, but wanted to be polite on TV.
Before "Trading Spaces": Ruth and Chris Nelson's living room started out with neutral walls and a dated look.
After: The "Trading Spaces" crew saw red, with artwork consisting of 24 paper squares pinned to the wall.
After After: It wasn't long before the Nelsons repainted walls and pulled off slipcovers. The fluttering paper squares came down.
After all that, I have to say the room designed for them was far superior to the before and the after/after. People with no taste whatsoever should not apply for this show. What are they thinking putting the ugly couches back, and painting horrible black on the wall with yucky window treatment. They even put back the awful side tables. Granted there have been some unbelievably bad designs inflicted on some homeowners, but this is not the worst. They should show Hildys flower bathroom, her straw on the wall room, or her records on the wall design just out. Any of Doug's dark urban funk disasters with weird dark colors ar frightening. The two newest designers are pretty wacked out always, and lest not even talk about Frank, the flamboyant pink/multirainbow hued arts & crafts freak.
Vern by far is the best designer with Genevieve a close second. Laurie can sometimes pull it off as well but she only knows how to do one color, yellw/orange.
Now the real sexy personna is Amy the Carpenter. There's a hardworking girl who can take a pile of X and create Y with her tools just as it appears in her mind (or the mind of a "designer.")
Chicks with power tools....ARRRGH.
I have no idea why Hildi is on the show. In my opinion, she and Kia are the worst. Some of their concepts (the turf bedroom that looked like a grave, the flower covered bathroom, the tiffany box inspired bedroom) are absolutely horrid.
I do enjoy watching Frank, as he has some clever "artsy" ideas. I really liked his candle holders he made out of pipe fittings that were to go into a batchelor bedroom.
They could do better quality work, regardless of the price limit. I've seen a room that was the victim not of Trading Spaces, but While You Were Out. The paint work was (literally) spotty, the carpet joints were sloppy, and so on. They left quite a lot of work for the homeowner to complete (or correct), but the camera does not pick up the flaws that are easily seen when you're standing in the room. If the Trading Spaces crew left a similar mess in their wake, it would not surprise me in the least.
The husband was sent off for a few days and they trashed his den. He was a movie fan, and had some sci-fi films, so the dingy blonde airhead designer latched onto that. She designed a look to make the room look like a "space station"
They painted everything powder blue or white. The ceiling was blue with large white circles. The carpet was blue with large white circles. They trashed his couch with a blue appolstery and transparent blue inflatable pillows. They stapled a wall with cheap aluminum metal plates to look like a "space ship hull"
They guy comes home and gives the blank stare and a "it's great. i just love it."
A look is exchanged between he and his wife that says "WTF!!!!" and "THIS SHIT GETS FIXED NOW!!!"
My wife and I are watching this and I told her "never ever do that to me"
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