Suicide Thwarted but One More Design Dream Dashed
Suicide Thwarted but One More Design Dream Dashed: A Top Design Episode 9 Recap of Sorts by Roxanne McDonald
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Matt swore he would kill himself if he didn’t get Top Designer of the night; and Andrea again dreamed aloud…for someone else to tank. |
By now you know which dream wish was satisfied. Well, you haven’t read anything about a funeral for the mawkish Matt, have you?
Top Design challenge is to take inspiration from and apply imagination to a space using an El Décor magazine cover—but rather than replicate, create a “luxury for less” design on a budget…of $7,000 or less.
And to “level the playing field,” since Andrea lives in L.A., the three can use Yahoo to research bargain shops and stores in the area.
(Not sure how this levels the playing field all that much, as Andrea still knows the area, and now she can Yahoo plus know where the shops are…whatever.)
Andrea has chosen an El Décor cover which features a “more elegant” space with high ceilings.
Matt goes for the monochromatic, mixed-period styles space which is an empty, clean space, he says.
And Carisa says she chose the cover with the luxurious and the patterns and colors which call to her.
Andrea tells us she hopes—again—someone will tank, then heads off to an architectural supply store where she smartly asks if the place has any unused or no longer in use display items.
Carisa is finding the prices in a store she loves overwhelming—but doesn’t use her wits to try for any price breaks. She just complains.
And Matt also has the brains to ask if there is any “designer discount.”
Carisa’s going coo-coo with the pillows again (has she learned nothing?), can’t find a sectional sofa, so fudges one, and back at the PDC tries a weak joke on Carl, who obviously can’t stand her and doesn’t even crack a feigned smile.
Matt repeats how stressed out he is, how this is the most stressed he’s been since he arrived, and discusses how his temporary loss of a carpenter (who has to stay at home and rest after almost cutting his hand off last time) is a bummer, but how he loves Sarah, so it’s okay.
And Andrea is severely focused on what she thinks will be a minimalist style space.
Carisa tries to chat up Andrea back at the loft, trying to nose into what Matt’s design ideas are, and says Matt never shares what he’s doing. Uh. Yeah. He wants to win?
Matt is off doing drapery panels for French doors; telling us how he has his idol, Margaret Russell, always in mind as he designs; and muses on how he is going for a “dreamy” living room…based on one word on his cover: “dream”.
Carisa is bitching at Carl, saying how she is so not a big fan of 45s; then rolls her eyes as Carl insists he keep working at one point. This part is obviously edited and all, but you can bet she has been yakking it up while Carl tries to execute her idea of a faux stone wall.
Of course Carisa is not happy with what and how Carl is doing, insisting he make thin bricks of compound when he is “making blobs!” You would think she would defer to the one who is the carpentry expert when it concerns doing
something involving carpentry. You would think she might realize that she sabotages the process by insisting she have control to this degree or by nagging him to death…and you might wonder why he hasn’t sawed his own hand off just to get away from her.
Anyway.
Also obvious is how the producers of “Top Design” must goad and nudge for backstabbing and in-fighting, for each discusses the other in hostile, or at least negative, terms. Carisa comments she is not sure what intention Andrea has for her space, and scoffs she is never sure what Andrea does to pull her rooms together.
Andrea smirks that she and Carisa have “different ideas” about what works, and adds with a smile that she would “love for her to go home.” Many of us would, Andrea.
Carisa is of course haranguing Carl—again—this time seething about how she doesn’t need to reproduce a stone but needs to get the “aesthetic”. Hmmm. That wall is taking up almost as much attention and time as Goil’s fire wall did last time….
But Carl has—as I’ve noticed most carpenters have—remarkable patience. (My father is a brilliant and skilled carpenter.) Knowing his métier, and by now knowing Carisa and her lack of appreciation and respect for anyone other than herself (and a couple design heroes she wants to emulate), Carl quietly tells her how he is “literally doing the handiwork of that era….People [back then] enjoyed that artistry and we’re literally recreating that artistry.”
I think Carisa just rolled her eyes again. Or huffed out a sigh.
Matt is picking up where Goil left off, with the “uh-oh, running out of time” exasperation, saying how he can’t do everything, how he also has found something he can’t do—upholstery. (Yeah, I have many times watched my mom reupholster, and when Matt started tearing into that gold brocade/silk stuff of the lounge sofa, I was wondering how far he’d get, despite how he said he had seen his upholsterer do it many times, and it looked so easy.)
The only time we have ever seen Matt lose it, really, is now. He gets possessed by the Carisa beast for a minute, there, and started freaking about the French doors not being done and obsessing about how his carpenter won’t come through.
He does not, notice, though, disrespect his carpenter, just as he rarely gets into bashing the others. This, you might agree, has taken him this far and will likely see him as Top Designer.
For this segment, he is, anyway, and while the others’ rooms
are beautiful—while Carisa, say the judges, is bold, iconic, and inventive and Andrea is talented, artistic, and chic—and despite how Matt’s rod is incomplete and the paintings didn’t get hung…he wins the Top Design title.
Matt’s room is sophisticated, is based on his fabulous furniture plan, and shows his exquisite taste.
See, I told you Matt was going to reign supreme by avoiding all that getting involved in other people’s business and wasting time bashing the others… instead concerning himself with the design tasks at hand.
Limited egotism. Quiet and steady respect.
Yay, Matt!
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