photo: hgtv
Dueling Kitchens
Original Air Date: July 26, 2009
Patricia Morris Buckley — Associate Staff Writer
pmb@thetwocentscorp.com
Oh, the dreaded kitchen challenge on HGTV’s Design Star. It always trips someone up and this season, it did so in a big way. But am I the only one who thought the wrong contestant got eliminated?
The episode kicked off with the 10 remaining designers opening paint cans. If they got a star, they were the team captains. Nathan and Amy were the lucky ones (or is that unlucky ones?) and chose teams playground style.
Nathan chose Antonio, Jason, Torie and Jean, while Amy picked Jany, Lonni, Tashica and Dan. Too bad that Amy chose Tashica over Torie for her last pick. Torie turned out to be a star in this challenge, while Tashica was indeed the weakest link.
Both teams decided to totally gut the existing kitchen. Then with $20,000, plus appliances and flooring kicked in by big companies, they went to work for an allotted 26 hours.
It was obvious that Amy did herself a disservice by choosing only one man (she also admitted that she’d never done a kitchen before). Dan got the bulk of the grunt work and quickly became the real leader without ruffling any feathers. But it was painful to see Tashica be assigned to doing the measurements and sure enough, she measured wrong and there were gaps in the granite countertops. Ugly gaps.
In Team Nathan, Antonio also seemed to take over and then complained that he had to do all the physical work. And complained loudly. Too bad that they all relied on Jen’s being a color expert, because that’s the only real place that the kitchen faltered. Torie came up with the idea of using metallic floor tiles as the backsplash, which came out beautifully.
And as loyal viewers know, the one place that kitchen makeovers usually go bad is the backsplash. Team Amy (or Team Heart as they named themselves), didn’t have time to do it correctly and it showed. But, the judges pointed out, a few accessories and it wouldn’t have shown. Tashica was in charge of accessories and she maybe got three or four placed in the kitchen in time. So it looked even more unfinished. (Remember last week how Tashica’s room was unfinished and poorly executed? Doesn’t this seem like a pattern now?).
In the end, an HGTV fix it team had to come in and redo Team Heart’s kitchen. That’s bad news. Yet, even with almost everyone on the team admitting Tashica pulled their efforts down, the judges chose to eliminate Amy because of her weak leadership.
Well, I cry FOUL! It’s obvious that Tashica is not up to par with the rest of the designers and she should have been the obvious one to go. Amy never said she was a leader and only by chance got the position. So unfair. But she proved to be a good sport.
The good thing about the kitchen challenge is that it really shows each designer’s personality and abilities. I’m going to make an early prediction that Dan and Antonio will be among the last few. Who is your favorite now? Do you think Amy should have been eliminated? Give us your Two Cents…
Up next week: Individual challenges in the white rooms!
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