Designers: Love Em or Hate Em

[Meredith Quill]

Discuss Them Here!

[Ananayel]

Some (maybe all) of the core group possibly returning.

This should be interesting!

[Willowsmom]

As long as Frank's back and Ty's not we'll watch.

[amykay9377]

I could do without Hilda, and would love to see Geneveve and Edward (the older guy with jet-black hair) come back. It's been so long, I don't remember many else. Oh, the redhead chick... she can stay away.

Also, would love to see Jason come back as carpenter, but for the love of all that is thrift-shop and holy, NO TY!

[AZChristian]

Vern . . . he did beautiful stuff.

[FormerMod-a1]

Oh yes, Vern.  And I'd love to see Doug back.  His designs were hit or miss with me, but I liked watching him work.  And not for lewd reasons. :-P  

Who am I kidding, I loved them all.  Yes, Hildi's 'crazy' designs did get old sometimes, but I liked watching her, too.  

I would love to see Carter back as a designer, and Amy, too.

[PaulaO]

They can all come back except Hildi.  Her designs were not good and she had a rotten, snotty attitude.

[auntjess]

Hilde can do beautiful work, though she does do crazy stuff.  I disliked Doug, because he was mean-spirited, and if he disliked a homeowner, he'd do things that would ruin their furniture.
WYWO was rerun a couple of times on some channel, and it all just looked so cheap and tacky, and low budget.  I wonder of TS will up the budget to do decent stuff.
I think people now would expect a consistently better product, than some of what they did back in the original.
Genevieve has been on other shows, and I hope she's not one, also the one who always seemed to use old barn wood, and old doors.
Laurie was pretty boring.
I do like Edward, and Amy's been a designer, but I can't remember which show.

ETA, I think it was Hotel Impossible where Amy occasionally has shown up as a designer for Anthony Melchiorri.

Edited July 23, 2017 by auntjess

[Mumbles]

I loved, loved, loved Vern's designs. He seemed to be one of the few designers who took the homeowner's needs and lifestyle in consideration. 

[auntjess]

Vern had left by the time I started watching it.

[friendperidot]

I had heard rumors of this show coming back, but when and what channel? Shoot, I may have to get one of those streaming services again! I love Frank, he was corny, but I loved him. In the heyday of this show, he did an appearance at the local home show. I had to go see him. I loved listening to him, it's been years, so I don't remember much except I was stuck behind 2 b***hes who were having their own conversation and blocked out most of his talk. I think they were just there to sit down. But I was annoyed, dirty looks didn't shut them up, don't remember if I shushed them, today I certainly would.

Laurie did a lot of designs I liked, but I never warmed up to her. Doug did some I liked, a lot I didn't, he did bring the pretty, but he also brought the petty. Hilde was never a favorite, I think she sometimes went overboard going overboard and it was awful for the homeowners. Edward was ok, I liked his end results, but he was another one I never warmed to. Vern did beautiful work, but was never to my taste, he's very sleek and modern, I love kitschy. Genevieve just annoyed me, I liked some of her results, I watched her other show a couple of times, but she just didn't interest me. 

As for the carpenters, I loved all them, even Ty, but his act got old in a hurry, he's on too many commercials now, I have little interest in watching him. And he seems to prefer being an actor, does he have the skills to do actual work anymore? But Carter, oh I would watch Carter. And I would watch Amy just because I love seeing women in non-traditional roles.

[auntjess]

There was Kia, and then the woman who did a lot of ratty old doors as decor.  Christy?
If they'd go to other old TLC shows, Andrew Dan-Jumbo could do really good work, but was inclined to eyeball things rather than measure.
 

[Maverick]

 I thought the original designers were Genevieve, Vern, Hildi, Doug, Frank and Laurie.  Kia and Kristy were part of the Family Edition expansion.  I think Edward (and his pony tail) were too.  I think there may have been a few more as part of that too, but they were definitely second stringers.  

[starri]

As much as I would rather have Vern or Gen design my own space, given the choice, I think I'd rather work with Laurie.  I'm not entirely sure why, but part of it is probably that she's basically what Designing Women would look like as a documentary.  And the rest is that she seemed to enjoy getting to meet the homeowners more than all the other designers.  I remember one episode where she was working with a gay couple in LA, and it was clear she was having as much fun working with them as they were working with her.

I know we remember the trainwrecks like Crying Pam and the hay wall, but I'd rather remember the ones that made people happy.

[auntjess]

I saw Genevieve design a nursery in the past 10 years or so, and it was utterly impractical, with dust-catching ruffles in places not easily laundered, like valences and lampshades.
She should know better.  Also there was some show about town remodel, and didn't like her there either.

I liked Edward, but then he removed a ceiling fan in the Keys.

[txhorns79]

Quote

Hilde can do beautiful work, though she does do crazy stuff. 

Did Hildi do the room where she decided that hay should be stapled to the walls?  I have such strong memories of that room, only because it was so bizarre and showed such awful judgment on the part of the designer.   

[FormerMod-a1]

Yes, Hildi put straw on a wall.  She also made one room into a big circus tent, with fabric attached to the center of the ceiling and draping down the sides of the walls.  But she has also done beautiful rooms.

Genevieve filled someone's room with sand, and made stone floors in a bedroom, and used moss in a room.  But she also has done some really nice rooms.

One time Doug and Hildi were told their room had to be all black and the other all white (I forget which was which) no matter what the home owners wanted.  Doug also turned a room into the pullman car, much to the delight of the husband and dismay of the wife.  But he also has done some nice rooms.

So, production can encourage, or downright mandate, "the crazy".  I hope they don't this time, but they probably will.  And I'll still watch.  (Not that all of the bizarre designs were the result of production. I think some crazy/bizarre came first, and then production liked the 'results' - crying, media attention, water cooler talk, etc.)

[Willowsmom]

Hildi also did a wall of chicken feathers.

[Happy Belly]

Edward and Laura...I loved them both equally as much

[starri]

1 hour ago, Willowsmom said:

Hildi also did a wall of chicken feathers.

And the bathroom where she stapled a bunch of silk flowers to the wall.

Thankfully, it was a spare bathroom in a house belonging to friends of Laurie who were planning on redoing it anyway, and only did the show to work with her.

[Maverick]

I vaguely remember Gen and the moss.   I don't think it was as bad as it sounds, and definitely not as bad as some of Hildi's disasters.   Hildi glued hay to the walls.  That was bad enough on its own, but she did in a historic Craftsman.  I remember hearing the show had to pay a pretty penny to fix that one.   There was another time Hildi was doing a bathroom and stapled hundreds of plastic flowers to the wall.  When the homeowners pulled them down they had to re-drywall because there too many holes to patch.

I vaguely remember Doug's Pullman car.  It was obviously a bad choice for a house, but as I recall it actually looked good.   I also remember Doug doing a "Prisoner of Love" room where he turned some couples bedroom into a jail cell using grey plastic electrical conduit.   Doug was the one who viewed TS as a game show and treated the makeovers as a prize or a zonk.  

[starri]

Don't forget the two military families where Doug bolted parts of cars to the walls of a child's bedroom while Kia made over the space of a woman who would have loved to have Frank's designs with black camouflage.

I honestly thought the latter should have gotten a free do-over with Frank, because even though she put on a brave face, the woman was just crushed.

[txhorns79]

Quote

Hildi glued hay to the walls.  That was bad enough on its own, but she did in a historic Craftsman.  I remember hearing the show had to pay a pretty penny to fix that one.   There was another time Hildi was doing a bathroom and stapled hundreds of plastic flowers to the wall.  When the homeowners pulled them down they had to re-drywall because there too many holes to patch.

I can't even imagine her thought process on the hay.  Unless the homeowner wanted some kind of dry straw themed home, there's no way anyone would ever go for that.  Even as an out of the box creative idea, it's just terrible.  I fully understand why the owners would be upset. 

[threebluestars]

I loooooved Doug. His snarkiness sustained me. I really hope he comes back.

I loved Vern's designs because they were totally my aesthetic though. 

[meep.meep]

53 minutes ago, starri said:

And the bathroom where she stapled a bunch of silk flowers to the wall.

Thankfully, it was a spare bathroom in a house belonging to friends of Laurie who were planning on redoing it anyway, and only did the show to work with her.

And another one where they glued cardboard to all the walls and ceiling.  And one where she used corrugated plastic panels on the walls.

[auntjess]

Some of those things were really bad for anyone with asthma, or just allergies, and surely against fire code in some cases.
Do you think people will sign up for this, if they start doing crap?
 

[FormerMod-a1]

Yes.  (Some) People like to be on TV.

[Maverick]

 I don't remember the cardboard walls but I totally believe it.   I do remember one where she wallpapered with 8 inch square sandpaper sheets.  But it was in the sitting area (maybe walk in closet?) or some utterly bland, boring McMansion so I couldn't get too worked up about it  

[movingtargetgal]

7 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

Quote

Hildi glued hay to the walls.  That was bad enough on its own, but she did in a historic Craftsman.  I remember hearing the show had to pay a pretty penny to fix that one.   There was another time Hildi was doing a bathroom and stapled hundreds of plastic flowers to the wall.  When the homeowners pulled them down they had to re-drywall because there too many holes to patch.

I can't even imagine her thought process on the hay.  Unless the homeowner wanted some kind of dry straw themed home, there's no way anyone would ever go for that.  Even as an out of the box creative idea, it's just terrible.  I fully understand why the owners would be upset. 

The homeowners also had two small children.  The neighbors told Hildi that they were concerned that the children would eat the hay off the walls and choke to death.  Hildi looked at them and said "Can't they just tell the children to not eat the hay?".

[Asp Burger]

Hildi was unpredictable. So was Doug. Those two often got paired as "the gruesome twosome." There were lots of Hildi/Doug episodes (the pretentious aesthetes), lots of Vern/Gen episodes (the cheerful, athletic, youthful designers), lots of Laurie/Frank episodes (the down-home Southern duo), and lots of Kia/Edward episodes (the new kids).  

However..."unpredictable" means sometimes Hildi rocked it. You just never knew. Her lows were horrifying (usually when she had an uncontrolled experiment she wanted to try) and her highs were really high. That red toile bedroom with the shadowboxes was one of my favorite rooms on TS ever. Just gorgeous. I also remember she fixed up a huge family room for an African-American family, and the "before" room had a ton of problems (wasn't a window rotting from moisture damage or something?). I can sort of visualize her result without being able to describe it well; I remember there were stencil designs on the wall. The homeowners were overjoyed with it. They were chanting "We want Hildi! We want Hildi!" and not with pitchforks.  She had her successes.   

So, I think she gets a bad rap in retrospect, and she did when the show was on too. Whenever she did a great room, people would say "I can't believe Hildi did a great room." Then the next time, they'd say, "I can't believe Hildi did a great room," forgetting the last time.

Of all the designers from when the show was at its peak of viewership (which was, what, 2001-03?), I don't even have to think about my candidate for worst: Kia. Nothing unpredictable about her. It was going to be kitschy, fugly themed crap, like "You're in the military, so my inspiration will be camouflage all over everything, and curtains that look like parachutes." The only suspense was whether she would finish the room on time, or they'd have to show it in 75% completed condition. And it was a toss-up whether her finishing was a good or bad thing. Maybe her not finishing made the inevitable do-over less work.  

She (Kia) was the only one who made me think, "How did she get here?" All of the others had obvious design talent and vision, even if what they did wasn't to my taste personally (Frank, Genevieve). Edward and Vern had the highest hit rate with me, and the worst I could say against Laurie was that she was unadventurous. She was rarely less than tasteful, though.  

Edited July 26, 2017 by Asp Burger

[Ananayel]

I remember on TWoP she was always NoKia.

If I had to pick one to do a real, fully budgeted room in my home that I had to live with for reals and not on tv, I think it would be Doug. Frank was nice, but too homey, if that's a thing, and Vern too minimalist. Maybe Edward...

[auntjess]

4 hours ago, Asp Burger said:

That red toile bedroom with the shadowboxes was one of my favorite rooms on TS ever. Just gorgeous.

I remember that one, not the details, but that the she did a beautiful red bedroom.  And if there were dogs, she always made sure they had a comfortable place.
Kia did a lot of crap, but she did use a lot of orange, which I like.
But now I'm remembering---I think she dyed a lampshade by dunking it in diluted paint.
I still think Doug was a mean-spirited SOB.

[txhorns79]

Quote

So, I think she gets a bad rap in retrospect, and she did when the show was on too. Whenever she did a great room, people would say "I can't believe Hildi did a great room." Then the next time, they'd say, "I can't believe Hildi did a great room," forgetting the last time.

I agree.  I think her lows were so low that it gets remembered a lot more than any of her good work.  And I'll state that I know the rooms had to be done within a certain budget, but looking again on YouTube, I was struck by how cheap some of the re-decorations ended up looking.  It was something I didn't necessarily see on the first watch.   

[Willowsmom]

It might be better if they started fresh with all new people. The old designers have too much baggage .

[auntjess]

There are a lot of TS reveals on youtube.
Wasn't there a kitchen Hilde (I think) did, and she tiled the countertop with ceramic tile, and the homeowner, a baker, hated it.
It really lost a lot of its usefulness, because you couldn't roll out a lot things on it, and grout would be hard to keep clean.
 

[Nordly Beaumont]

On 7/25/2017 at 6:19 PM, auntjess said:

Do you think people will sign up for this, if they start doing crap?

They signed up for it while they were doing it the first time. I never felt sorry for a single homeowner. Even if the designers didn't do something crazy (like in the beginning), they could still do something the homeowner would think was totally ugly (or wrong like the baker with the tiled counter Auntjess mentioned). The homeowners took a chance with their house to be on tv, no guarantees they'd like it.

Personally I would have hoped for Hildi or Doug for the fun and adventure of it. Unpopular opinion, but Vern bored me. I can figure out tan with pops of red and lots of candles all on my own. Frank was funny and but I think we've seen all he can do. Wouldn't mind seeing Laurie and Gen again (I thought the moss room was pretty). If they go with all new designers I imagine they'll cast a Vern "type" a Hildi "type" etc. I just hope for good personalities that I'll like watching!

[Asp Burger]

Something I had forgotten about Genevieve and it popped into mind: Remember how...um, "frugal" she was? She was the one who'd be interviewed by Paige at the end, and rather than "You're $18 over budget" (with a big show of the designer giving money to Paige), it would be "Your final total for this room was $647." And the thing is, it often looked it. She was the one who would make use of a rusty file cabinet or something.   

I remember it was a running thing in the TWoP recaps. If someone else only spent $820 of the $1,000 budget, it would be "That's Genevieve territory!" 

[readster]

Hildi's designs went one way or the other. I remember watching with my parents at times and we would agree that they room was a disaster or wish she did one of our rooms that way. I always enjoyed Frank or Vern's designs, but there were times that things were just odd on their choices. I do remember one time that Frank was $2 over budget and he handed the two bucks to Paige. I still remember the infamous brown room episode that lead to constant talk about how it ended the friendship of the two neighbors and so forth. Despite that I'm surprised between hay outline rooms, prison bed rooms and I remember one stack cube room that look like it was out of a Playland. Why that didn't happen more often.

[auntjess]

I like Blanche Garcia, who sometimes worked on Hotel Impossible, and HGTV design star winner, Danielle Colding, from a few years back
Let's have new designers on the show.

[HurricaneVal]

Doug did that one bedroom with the Tiffany blue walls with the white painted overlay that came from a China pattern projected from a transparency with one of those old overhead projectors.  It was absolutely lovely and incredibly cheap--except for the painstaking labor required for the detailed overlay.

[Asp Burger]

"They took a perfectly wonderful little show and beat it to death, slowly, with a lead pipe." An interesting quote from Frank Bielec, made several years after the series ended. The people from the show he still kept in touch with were Carter Oosterhouse, Hildi Santo-Tomas, and Doug Wilson.  

Doug, Frank, Hildi, and Laurie were the lifers: 2000-08. Everyone else either bailed at some point or joined in progress. That includes designers, carpenters, and hosts.   

Edited August 3, 2017 by Asp Burger

[sskrill]

I remember Hildi doing a room with old LPs stapled to the wall.  If I recall correctly, this was the same one where she spray painted the homeowners deceased grandmothers chair with black spray paint and then painted neon flowers on top of it.  If I had been that homeowner I would have stabbed her right there in the middle of the reveal.  

[penbrat]

I so enjoyed this show when it was on.  Interesting to see how it comes back.  Loved Doug and Frank (not always their designs but thought Frank was so sweet and tried to hard and Doug was a total smart aleck and made me laugh)

[roughing it]

11 hours ago, Asp Burger said:

"They took a perfectly wonderful little show and beat it to death, slowly, with a lead pipe." An interesting quote from Frank Bielec, made several years after the series ended.

A thousand times "yes"

[readster]

On 8/3/2017 at 2:09 AM, sskrill said:

I remember Hildi doing a room with old LPs stapled to the wall.  If I recall correctly, this was the same one where she spray painted the homeowners deceased grandmothers chair with black spray paint and then painted neon flowers on top of it.  If I had been that homeowner I would have stabbed her right there in the middle of the reveal.  

Hildi was very oblivious to things so much during the series. I mean she really thought people wouldn't mind when she went with going against people's wishes or messing with pieces that were really sentimental to the owners. I remember my parents always saying: "Why does she keep doing that?"

Edited August 6, 2017 by readster
why and not what.

[Asp Burger]

On the other hand, if I had something that was of great sentimental value and I didn't want it modified in any way, and I went on TS, I'd put it on the "do not touch" list. And before anyone says, well, Crying Pam did that with her fireplace, and Doug still did something with it that she hated, he didn't really "touch" it. He just put something in front of it.  

Even better, stash the whatever-it-is somewhere else for the two days they're going to be there. Admittedly, that would be easier with a chair than with, say, a piano.  

I agree that Hildi and Doug were all about what they wanted to do, though. If they left behind a beautiful, functional room that the homeowners loved -- and they both did so many times -- it was never a case of turning over a new leaf. They were not going to watch that delighted response and say, "Gee, I should always try for that." It was as random as the flip of a coin. I'd still rather have had either one of them than Kia. 

Edited August 6, 2017 by Asp Burger

[readster]

Oh jeez, Kia. Where do you start?

[friendperidot]

Was Mark Montano (spelling is probably wrong) on Trading Spaces or While You Were Out? I know he always did lots of crafty projects. I see him now and then on one of the local PBS stations on Saturday mornings with his very own craft show! He still does crappy crafty projects, but they're probably just fine for children or beginners. And after that bad review, I rather like him and his show is a pleasant little Saturday morning filler.

[Ananayel]

I think he was WYWO. Which - shall we place wagers on when that gets rebooted as well?

[auntjess]

Mark Montano was WYWO, and was an excellent seamster, which was the word he used.
I liked him, and felt sorry because the carpenters seemed to pick on him.