(Nails & Photos from SupaNails)

A couple of weeks ago, my lil sis came to visit me. One of the things we did was get our nails done. And to make her trip special, we didn’t just get regular manicures…we got nail art! I know what you’re thinking – nail art is tacky. That is true for about 90% of nail art, but there are also some pretty cool options out there.

For our manicures, we went to a place called Valley in Nolita. Check out the final product above. Pretty groovy right? I got simple gray nails with a gold glitter gradient and my sissy got a zig zag pattern using two different shades of beige. So overall I’d say we were pretty tasteful.

Its been my experience that getting your nails done for fun (think Halloween or your birthday) can be a really nice pick-me-up. So the next time you feel like doing something different, consider getting some over-the-top nails.

And here are some examples of the kinds of nails they can do at Valley:

Yep, it has recently been announced that Vanilla Ice of “Ice Ice Baby” fame (he was so cool when i was in the 3rd grade) is slated to have his own home improvement show on the DIY Network. Apparently, Vanilla has spent the last few years flipping houses, so now I guess he is a home improvement expert. Who knew? The show is called The Vanilla Ice Project and premieres on October 14th.

The Men's Patio

The Women & Dan's Patio

I’ve always believed that it is important to finish what you start, but HGTV Design Star is really challenging my convictions. Frankly, this show is hardly worth watching let alone writing about! This week’s challenge was based around musical instruments which made both me and my musician boyfriend cringe. Each designer picked an instrument to be their inspiration. Then they were split into teams (girls and Dan versus the boys) and had to design outdoor patio spaces. The challenge (just like last week) was to design a cohesive space that would also represent each designer’s inspiration. And yet again the producers thought it was a good idea to stage the random objects of inspiration in the completed space. Last week it was mannequins. This week it was instruments. This show is about designing spaces! So how does it make sense to have a giant keyboard in the middle of a patio!?

It was super annoying hearing the designers wax poetic about how keyboards and french horns inspire them. And it was funny to hear Vern Yip compliment Micheal’s electrical cord art piece that feature BACKWARDS(!) music notes. Did no one notice that!?

Overall, I think this challenge was just weak. It would be far more interesting for the teams to have real clients to design for. For instance: Design a patio for Lauren. She is a graphic designer who loves to drink wine and hang out with her boyfriend and her cat.

By the way, the women/Dan won with Nina being named the individual winner. I guess her painted squiggles were better this week. And Trent went home after his less than inspired design and totally idiotic filmed segment. He basically just walked around pointing out the various places where your “friends and family” could sit. Thanks I forgot what I chair was for! But like you even care at this point.

So, there. That’s my recap. This show is ridiculous. My recaps are becoming more and more ridiculous too. I’m gonna keep watching and maybe I’ll continue the recaps. But if this show keeps making me angry I might just have to stop.

What is the best thing you can have happen to you when you run an home design blog? Moving! Why? Because it is the mother of all design projects. And guess, what? I’m moving! My boyfriend and I are signing the lease on a pre-war one-bedroom down the street from our current apartment. I know this photo looks pretty rough, but the super is in the middle of renovating (and no, that isn’t a homeless man’s shopping cart in our soon-to-be living room).

The features I am most excited about are:

• Tons of natural light! 3 windows in the bedroom, 3 windows in the living room, 1 window in the kitchen, 1 window in the bathroom.
• Molding! The living room and bedroom both have tons of cool molding on the wall.
• And the little fact that we will now have separate rooms! No more studio living!!!

Biggest challenge I anticipate:

• Fitting a home office in there without it being awkward.

So get ready, because this is going to be quite a project!

The Men's Living Room

The Women's Living Room

This week the challenge was a fashion-inspired battle of the sexes. Each designer got to pick a look ranging from a tailored suit to a wedding dress. Then the women and men were grouped together and each assigned an apartment to decorate. Each designer was responsible for making sure that their look was represented in the end design.

I do like the idea of a challenge based on fashion (see my post about Breton stripes), but I have no idea how 5 people who barely know each other can decorate one apartment together in what looked like a day. Also, I disliked the fact that they staged mannequins wearing each designer’s look in the apartment. It was distracting and made it hard to see the space.

Anyway, here are the highlights and lowlights. I guess the big story is that Nina is proving to be even more annoying than I initially thought. She totally takes over the women’s team and not only forces a lot of her ideas onto her teammates but also has a really nasty condescending tone. She decides to paint a really stupid butterfly mural to compliment her colorful beaded dress. This lands her in the bottom two.

But in the end it was Tera (the Texas mom) who got the boot. She took the yellow from her look’s t-shirt and decided painting some walls in that color was enough. In their taped segments Tera had a better on-camera presence than Nina, but you’re crazy if you think the producers will let Nina leave the show this early.

Tera's Yellow Walls

At this time, I need to give Stacey a special mention for being lousy at this challenge. Her look was a Lilly Pulitzer dress so she produced an ugly gray/green chair (and it took her all day to do it). I can’t say I totally get that choice and how it relates to Lilly Pulitzer. But apparently it wasn’t bad enough to land her in the bottom.

Stacey's Chair

On the guy’s team Courtland proved to be the strongest and was named the winner of the challenge. Meanwhile, Michael felt it necessary to follow Trent around and rearrange everything he did. Trent seems to be a little unimaginative and things did look better after Michael rearranged them. Overall, the guys seemed to make a much better team than the women (all thanks to Nina.)

So now that I have covered the general points of the show, let me address something else. After only two episodes I am finding it hard to ignore the short comings of Design Star. Here is a list of what bothers me. Let me know what you think.

The Judges

Vern Yip, Candice Olsen and Genevieve Gorder are normally perky HGTV hosts helping normal people achieve their interior dreams. But as judges they are not likable at all. It feels like they are trying too hard to appear authoritative. I also question their judgment (they complimented Stacey on her lame olive/gray chair). Its just disappointing that the judges are so block-headed. It makes me yearn for the Bravo show Top Design that featured accomplished high-end judges like Todd Oldham, Jonathan Adler and Kelly Wearstler.

The Audience

I don’t think HGTV can decide who this show is for. It has the potential to appeal to a younger, hipper audience (a’la Bravo’s competition shows) and yet it can’t let go of its “mom jeans” tendency. The reward for this challenge was a feature in Red Book…wait a second. RED BOOK!? Really? I don’t know anyone who reads that. Even my mom is too cool to read Red Book!! (That’s a compliment, mom)

The Contestants

With the exception of a very few (and no one has blown me away yet), the contestants seem very amateurish. Maybe the good ones are waiting for Top Design to come back on? They really need to step it up.

So I’ll wait to see what is in store next week. I think it is a bad sign that my interest is already waning. Hopefully it will get better. Otherwise, we are in for a long season. (And do any of you even watch this show?)

Well, well, well. The first episode of Design Star was entertaining enough. The first challenge was to decorate a bedroom for another designer in the cast. Designers were paired up and given about 10 minutes to get acquainted. The space they were working in was a small white box with white IKEA furniture. And the twist? They could only shop at an “Asian market” with a budget of $500. As it turns out they had to shop at Soho’s very own Pearl River Mart. This place is a multi-level, Asian themed store where you can find a ton of great things. Having visited Pearl River Mart many a time, I was excited to see what people would do.

The Winner

Overall, no one really bowled me over. But then again, white box challenges are always hard…there is no natural light and regardless of the design, I feel like the rooms always feel too fake to really make an impression. The winner for the night was Nina, who’s room looked fairly finished but personally I was not a fan of the umbrellas…they looked too much like a prop. I did like the faux moulding she created and the wall color was nice. In addition to Nina being the winner, we also discover that she is a bitch (or was at least edited that way). She seems to set up her partner Courtland by saying one thing in their 10-minute discussion and something completely different when the judges show up. But Courtland’s room was very very fuchsia, so I can understand why she wasn’t digging it.

Nina's Room for Courtland

The Middle

Many of the people in the middle were mediocre. Alex’s room for instance was very sloppy. Surprisingly Tera’s (the really tacky designer I discussed in my last post) room was one of the most put together out of the bunch. And I like the woven wall hangings she did. I also thought Tom’s room was interesting, but he got nailed for it looking too Asian and therefore being too easy. But Tom had a lot of good ideas. Check out the way he covered the side table (which is a LACK side table from IKEA by the way) in a mix of different patterns. I think he kind of got the shaft in this challenge.

Alex's Room For Casey

Tera's Room For Trent

Tom's Room For Julie

The Bottom

And then there were the bottom two – Julie and Emily (oh no! I like Emily!). Julie did a crazy room for Tom that involved childish painting and a rug made out of down feathers…yep, basically just a square of feathers on the floor. The bed was also terrible in this satin-y floral bedspread that looked like something a little girl, not a man in a suit, would have. While I will commend Julie for having the idea for the feathers, I think the judges thought it was pretty stupid.

Julie's Room For Tom

Emily is still one of my favorites, but she lost sight of the big picture on this challenge. The elements she did have in her room were cool, but there was no overall concept to tie it together. I think the judges were intrigued by what she came up, but Vern Yip said it looked like a monk’s cell with artwork he created from threads off of his robe. Ouch, but I like Vern’s imagery. I hope that Emily can improve, because I like her sense of style wayyyyy more than the other contestants. And she is also really funny and quirky. In talking about her design approach she says “I don’t do sketches. I don’t draw. I stare.” I think I can relate to that. Anyway, she realized that her room was lacking and rather than trying to hard sell it, she admitted its flaws and kind of laughed at herself.

Emily's Room For Michael

Because the winner of Design Star will get his or her own show on HGTV, the bottom two had to film a segment about their rooms to help the judges decide who should be kicked off. Julie’s was painful. She called her show “House of Khuu” and it felt very stunted and awkward. “I’ll show you how to take a white box and [stumbles over words here] change it from drab to fab.” And then later “you can turn your space from boo like that to Khuu like that in under 500 dollars.” WOW that’s bad and so not Khuu!

Emily on the other hand was just herself. I believe she called her show “What I Would Have Done Differently If I Could Do The White Box Challenge Over Again” and basically talked about what she would do differently and what she liked. “It was a white box and now its a boring box.” I appreciate her honesty.

In the end, the judges chose to dismiss Julie…thank god! But of all the dismissal lines in reality tv, I think Design Star has the lamest. Vern Yip said to Julie “Please leave the competition.” C’mon! That is so unimaginative. “Please pack your knives and go” or “You’re out” are such better parting lines. Is that really the best they could come up with? And then he uttered this hilarious line to the designers who made it to next week “Please go back to your penthouse.” Oh my god…I just find that hilarious. I want to start saying that to people.

Below are the “highlights” of this week’s episode. You can also watch the full episode here. Until next week!

A few cast members that I find intriguing…

Alex Sanchez merely because he went to North Carolina A&T University in my hometown. But in looking at the work that got him on the show I’m guessing he likes to use brown ALOT. Hmm not sure how I feel about that…my biggest pet peeve with HGTV is their enthusiasm over beige.

Based on the work that got them on the show, Emily Henderson seems to be a cut above the rest in terms of sophistication. I think Emily is my fav right now.

And then there is Tera Hampton, the christian mom of three. Ok, I don’t want to piss anybody off, but her rooms are horrendous!  Yowza!

Season premier is Sunday at 10 (luckily True Blood comes on at 9!).

Welp, I finished my ottoman class. It was a bit traumatic, but I am glad I did it. Now I have a cute little ottoman covered in a disgusting purple fabric. Thanks to the teacher and his assistant for making the ottoman look good and thanks to me for picking such a nasty fabric. Here’s my excuse though…the week I had to pick out fabric I was suffering from crazy allergies so my judgment was impaired. It also didn’t help that the first time I went to look at fabrics (at Zarin Fabrics) they were filming an episode of HGTV Design Star and I couldn’t really look around. So the next day I had to rush back to buy something on my lunch break. In my allergic haze, I decided to just buy something cheap rather than something that was cute and $45/yard.

Anyway, you should be very impressed that I made an ottoman. I know it doesn’t look like much, but just to prove how hard I worked, here is a montage of images showing most of the steps involved. Now be impressed!!!!

I have mixed feelings about the designers on HGTV. Usually I just watch House Hunters or Property Virgins, but I recently caught part of a show that has made me a bit obsessive. It’s from HGTV Canada and its called Sarah’s House. The premise is simple – designer Sarah Richardson buys a fixer upper and spends each episode of the season fixing up one room at a time. So one episode covers the living room and one covers the landscaping etc. Its a fun show to watch because Sarah and her assistant Tommy Smythe have great taste and they show you how they develop the concept for the room and where and how they find the fabrics, wall coverings, window treatments and furniture. Its a good primer on how to plan out a room. They also do some really great renovations too.

Alas, this show is not on iTunes, but you can watch full episodes for free through HGTV.com. Check out a show and I bet you will be hooked. And you’ll get to hear her say “house” in a Canadian accent over and over again!

Here’s the show page on the US HGTV site, but there is more info on the Canadian HGTV Site, so I would check that out as well. (It looks like there have been other seasons, but I have only seen Season 2.)

US: http://www.hgtv.com/sarahs-house/show/index.html

Canada: http://www.hgtv.com/sarahs-house/show/index.html

Full Episodes!

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv-sarahs-house/videos/index.html