Best Supporting Role Award Should Go to Carpenters of Top Design

Filed under: Top Design
04-23-2007

Best Supporting Role Award Should Go to Carpenters of Top Design by Roxanne McDonald

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Congratulations to the most deserving of designers, Matt Lorenz. Yet, how about if we have another award–for the carpenters who made it all possible?

With a father who was a skilled, clever, and patient carpenter, I had been thinking about the carpenters of “Top Design.” It was time, I decided, they got some closer coverage, some more focused attention, too.

Just as I was listening to Carisa carp at and about Carl for the umpteen millionth time and just as Carl, as always, had responded with stalwart stoicism, I had remarked to myself how important to the “Top Design” task the carpenters are. I also remarked (again to myself, as there’s nobody else here) how these carpenters take a lot more crap than they should—how the treatment by some of the “Top Design” contestants is/was disrespectful and even borders/ed on abusive.

But did the carpenters complain? Not to us, anyway. Instead, they smiled about having to go to the ER after a close call; they patiently explained procedures and processes; and they continued to come through with stunning results despite the restrictions and ragging.

One of the carpenters, Ed Schoen, was discussing (on the “Top Design” website) how “the designers are never heard talking about their carpenters.”

He was referring to them on the actual sets, I’m sure, as what we the audience got were several instances of designers talking about their carpenters…in a negative way, usually, if the words were coming from Carisa, but occasionally in reference to the joy of working with such tolerant, effective, supportive craftspersons, if, say, Matt was asked about working with his carpenter of the week.
As I was first plotting an outline for a tribute article to the “Top Design” carpenters, I came across only one other such piece–by Christopher Muther of The Boston Globe, titled “Unflappable carpenter at center of ‘Top Design’.”

That article featured Blair Toland, and even more rightfully so did it honor Blair as representative of all the “Top Design” carpenters, as most considered him the most admirable of the group. The only other place I could find online was the BRAVO.com “Top Design” section featuring bios of and interviews with the carpenters. So with the little inside info I have, I will give nods to each with a few details and comments from each, acknowledging that the notes here are repeats but are delivered to you in attempts to remind us who the designers would be without these brilliant professionals.

Blair Toland

Blair Toland, from South Boston and Rhode Island, brought about four years of carpentry experience with him, though he had been working with his hands and been a hands-on type all of his life. A self-taught professional, Toland had a wonderful attitude, even about the difficulties of working under such time and budget constraints, not being able to hang out with everyone after a job, and not enlisting or televising the carpenters’ commentary.

The cabana project and Andrea his favorites, Toland also wished the program showed more of the finished jobs up close. Both carpenter comments and up-close details would have given insight for audiences. Blair Toland is not bitter, however, and will take his new experience back to his remodeling and renovating business in Boston, Tall Guy Woodworking, Inc..

Carl Mueller

Raised in several locations around the globe and now hailing from Los Angeles, California, Mueller started in the carpentry profession when he was “too poor to afford furniture,” he says. A self-trained carpenter who enjoyed how the challenges got better and better and how he learned more with each no one, Mueller found a great sense of satisfaction in “pulling off the impossible.”

One of those we at home might consider the greatest impossibility was working with Carisa…though despite what we might have inferred, Carl openly admitted to Carisa being his favorite. “She’s extremely talented, with excellent vision and an innate sense of what ‘works’,” he explained, though he also loved working with Goil and Andrea for “their hands-on attitude and respect for function” and got along nicely with Matt, as well.

Mueller made much sense as he discussed what I have been thinking and now saying, that the “Top Design” carpenters are/were “vital” to the “Top Design” process: “If the designer (visionary) is rigid and inflexible, the feeling of the piece will not be conveyed to the carpenter and ultimately the design will not be true to the original vision. But, if the designer can inspire the carpenter to create with them, then you have something.”

His job, as he saw it, he said, “was to absorb the download and then offer ideas that pushed the design forward to be better than what was originally conceived.” To pull this feat off, he had to have confidence and trust, had to keep an ego from interfering, and hoped that the “good designer” had his/her “eyes on the prize” and could “subsume their egos.”
Whether his good ideas were accepted and embraced, or whether hid weaker ideas were “politely rejected,” Carl Mueller still maintains that “all ideas are good ideas if they used as stepping-stones to what is better.”

His great ideas have made for stepping stones back to his life and to new prospects investing in properties and planning on doing redevelopment with them.

Chris Berlin

Originally from Washington, D.C. and currently living and working in Venice, California, Berlin brought to “Top Design” his lifetime of working with his hands and his early start (at 16) of doing carpentry work. He also brought a self-effacing honesty to his job and to his discussions, narrating how he is truly a carpenter who learned by way of on-the-job training—starting with how as a kid he was told to retrieve a board-stretching tool and searched forever to find it as the others laughed and laughed.

Of course, that humility turns to cheeky humor when he answers a question about what he would liked to have seen also included on “Top Design,” saying the omitted scenes of him doing work without a shirt and revealing his six-pack.

Berlin is busy, but his wonderful presence might be requested if you can get him away from his renovating of restaurants at night and fabricating work during the day.

Chris Minori

Minori also started carpentering in high school, and added studies in mechanical engineering at Arizona State to his repertoire. As a carpenter who favored such projects as the beach cabana one, Minori also lends insight into how hard each and every carpenter worked to help “Top Design” contestants to succeed and the show to evolve. He describes how for each episode they had to lift and move a lot of materials, often moving the same materials many times—“between picking it up at the lumber yard and then moving it around for TV.”

At the same time, Minori brought the experience of having worked many jobs (commercial to residential) and in many styles (post-modern to industrial), as well as a positive attitude, an appreciation for designers like Goil and a respect for a show he now suggests could have “showed more on how the designs were actually implemented as opposed to just ‘cutting’ to the final result.” Minori takes with him new experiences and goals of re-building a house he owns in Studio City and continuing to work the many finishing gigs he has going for several clients in the area.

Ed Schoen

Schoen, who grew up in a small three-bedroom home with four brothers, one sister, and a nephew in St. Louis, is not only a professional carpenter but a home repair specialist running a home repair business in North Hollywood, California. With all his training self-taught or on the job learned, Schoen brings a creative and positive mind to everything he does. He says, “Anything can be done in my mind - you just have to be creative in finding a way.” Anything that challenges that creativity is what moves him to do such fine work.

The only thing negative he shared was how disappointing it was to have so little of the behind-the-scenes footage aired. He even discussed how though he had a bad first impression of Carisa, she came to prove herself “a hard worker and dedicated to the project.” Even with Erik who offered nil communication, Schoen made what he said must have been “a thousand plus cuts…; jammed that room out…; and was busy the entire allowed time.” He doesn’t know, he added, of “anyone else who could have pulled that off.”

But for Schoen and his attitude of anything being possible, it is likely that his next goal—to pick up a national commercial—will be as big as his process and results.

Jared Dostie

A carpenter who lives in works in Studio City, California, Dostie grew up in Hampden, Maine, where he was one of a “long line of carpenters”—working with his father as early as the time he was “old enough to hold a hammer” and now doing it for a living for the past six years.

With a great reverence for aesthetics—which have always been, he says, a big part of the profession for him—Dostie expressed disappointment in not always getting to be creative and in the time constraints of the projects on “Top Design”: “Finished-looking carpentry is not something you should rush,” he shared, though he, too, was positive about how he and other carpenters “made it work.”

This attitude harks back to his up-bringing and training (most of which was done by his father). He explained, “My father and uncle were both very talented tradesmen. They worked in New England where the standard for carpentry is measured in centuries, not decades. My father got me started and the rest I learned the hard way, through trial and error.”

This practical, hands-on knowledge and experience, he added, could have benefited the viewing public in many of the behind-the-scenes projects. Laughing in response to a question about what he saw was not featured on the show that he wished was, he said, “Well, 99% of our work was not featured on the show. We worked non-stop for 12-16 hour shifts. In the end it was a show about designers but I think the audience could have benefited from some practical knowledge on how to execute a design.”
The clients of his busy construction busy, however, do benefit. And Jared Dostie invites (with new partner Chris Minori) others to get the same benefits by calling their B&B Carpentry at (213) 884-8178.

Robert Menna

Originally from Manhattan, NYC and now living and working in Hancock Park, Los Angeles, Menna continues what he has been doing for over thirty years, now. A self-taught carpenter with a “doctorate from the school of hard knocks,” Menna had more positive than negative responses to working on “Top Design.” In agreement, evidently, with most of the other carpenters, Menna found frustration in not being able to “produce a flawless finished product.” But he acknowledged the benefits of working in a controlled environment, one which took away his control and forced him to streamline his otherwise pecuniary/perfectionistic habits. He also tipped his hat to the other carpenters who were, he said, “a great bunch…very well rounded in their skills and a pleasure to work with,” as well as to those designers who were communicative and flexible.

An avid lover of sharp line and the geometric shape (such as that, he said, of Shaker, Frank Lloyd Wright, Stickley, Craftsman era), Robert Menna works on a reproduction project for one of Schindler’s houses, and looks forward to his alternate love, working on restoring boats and yachts.

Sarah Miller

Originally from Mendham, New Jersey, then living all over the U.S. and France, Miller now hails from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, where she continues what has been a life-long interest in carpentry. Especially adept at and appreciative of the craft of flipping houses, Miller discussed the beauty of the work: “Flipping allows me to work endless hours, which is a GREAT thing and construct and design as I like, which is also very important to me. I seem to have a good sense of design, in terms of cabinetry, trim, kitchens and bathrooms.”

Miller also has a talent for bargain-hunting antique fixtures and elements, to help keep the costs down, and brought these and other self-taught and apprenticed woodworking and furniture renovation and carpentry skills to “Top Design.”

She discussed the pleasures of being treated with respect by the male carpenters; of how–considering how much pressure they were under—the designers were “pretty cool”; and how even “poor Todd Oldham has taken it on the chin as a host, but … is a sweetheart of a guy.”

Miller also addressed the carpenters’ great stress of such short build times, their [intended] lack of a carpentry budget, and the sheer exhaustion they endured. And Miller brings up the difficulty that inspired this writer to honor the “Top Design” carpenters in the first place…how “hard [it was] to be thought of as basically irrelevant to the show when we poured our hearts and souls into each of the challenges.”

“I know that the designers were the stars, but I don’t know of one carpenter who took his responsibility lightly. As I have seen (and experienced!) on several episodes, the designers blamed the carpenters for both perceived and trumped up failures,” Miller explains.

Miller also snapped back, resilient as all the great carpenters are, to reiterate her love for Goil as a “wonderful, hardworking, respectful and gracious person,” and spoke to the scenes with the harsh Carisa, who was one of the few who extended that attitude of the carpenter as, as Miller defined it, the “scapegoats” of the show….

But like the others, Sarah Miller is no scapegoat (we who watched, identified, and/or sympathized know this). And she will start looking for another house to renovate soon, will enjoy her new puppy, and will, as all the brilliant carpenters, go on to support, soothe, and satisfy with their patience, their talents and skills, and their unrelentingly positive approaches to projects and people not so positive.

Bravo and Brava to you all.

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