Design Star – Recap & Review – White Box Challenge

photo: hgtv

Design Star
White Box Challenge

Original Air Date: Jul 18, 2011

Patricia Morris Buckley —Sr. Staff Writer
pmb@thetwocentscorp.com

Isn’t it nice to have our good old Design Star back? The second show of the season confirmed that the format we all love and made us major fans to begin with has returned. Yay!

And how great is the White Box Challenge? I look forward to it all year long. They all start with a three-walled room with two end tables, a couch/futon with two pillows, a dresser, a desk/table with two chairs and a lamp. This is more furniture than they’ve gotten in past seasons and a lot more variety.

The 11 remaining designers had an hour to shop at a restaurant supply store with a budget of $1,200. In the past, they’ve had to pull items from a dollar store or a pet store, so this year’s challenge seemed like a piece of cake (pun intended). A restaurant supply store has such a huge variety of items and that budget made anything possible.

It looked as if they had around two days to complete the challenge. Tanika told them that the room didn’t need to be functional. Some contestants took that to mean that it shouldn’t be functional at all, while others ignored it completely and went totally functional. To me, that directive meant to go beyond the average design and make something more “wow” than useable.

Here’s what each contestant did:

Doug: The show was housed in a warehouse in a graffiti village, so Doug recreated graffiti artist Keith Haring’s work with bold graphics and an eye-popping red, black and white palette (especially the graphic white and black floor). It was visually overwhelming to me, but I think it fit the challenge well. I didn’t agree with the judges when they said it didn’t show any of Doug — that was NEVER stipulated in the rules of the challenge.

Karl: I liked Karl’s design a lot more than the judges. With paint he created a box motif in beautifully coordinated colors. The room was functional, but if the corner of a piece of furniture peaked inside a color box, that corner became the same color as the box. The judges dinged him for using paint again (he won for his mural last week), but it wasn’t another mural and thanks to the soothing, whimsical color motif, it was the one room I really could have lived in. They did like the bubble light fixture he made from to-go containers.

Kevin: He knew that, after being in the Bottom Two last week, he had to deliver. And he did, using crumpled butcher block paper to create a unique and eye-catching focal wall. He also used mop heads for some fun rugs (as if three Komondor dogs had settled in for a nap in different parts of the room). But the rest of the room was rather tame and underused.

Bret: He decided to be literal. As painting graffiti is called “bombing,” he painted three large bombs on his focal wall. It really didn’t work for me, but his color palette was delightful with coffee-colored and white paint and pops of red and black.

J: I loved her floor, where she used silver flat tops of to-go containers and painted them with a blue and green wash. She also created a working firebox with sternos and hung four bottles with parsley in them. But that’s it – that was the whole room. And when it came time to do her video challenge, she didn’t seem to be able to gather her thoughts and came off really lame. The judges thought her bland room looked unfinished and I agree.

Tyler: He went all out, throwing most of the furniture away. He created a fun chair with water bottles that he lit from the inside and covered with the futon pad. His walls were an explosion of green, white and black, shaped like splashed paint. Very impressive and the judges rightfully loved it.

Leslie: Leslie tried to do too much. On the side walls she used black paint to write words about herself (something that was done better two seasons ago) and used rubber mats and candy wrappers to create art on the focal wall. While there were several nice elements, the whole thing was too busy for me.

Meg: Oh, poor girl. She was in the Bottom Two last week and it’s clear that this challenge is way over her head. She has no real concept. Her coral paint is fun, but her wobbly table falls apart at the last second (as it had been throughout the challenge). She tries to add some shadowing to her furniture, but it’s too little, too late. She was so overwhelmed, I’m sure she cried off camera. The judges were underwhelmed, of course. But her nice video presence does impress them.

Mark: He takes on a huge challenge – a giant mural that’s like pop art dedicated to the Air Force as a tribute to his grandfather. David points out that if it’s not done well, it would be better that he didn’t do it at all. But Mark pulls it off beautifully. Then he uses the futon frame and many silver containers to create an airplane. It’s high concept, not at all functional and stunning.

Kellie: She barely squeaks by this week after making such a good impression on the judges last week. Her room has lots of great small moments, such as a picture of paint dripping and then dripping real paint on the floor or painting her footprints around the room, but there’s no overall “wow.” It made me think back to last week when the judges loved her “little moment” under the stairs and I wonder if that’s all she can do.

Cathy: This lady is really getting on my nerves. She really believes she’s superior, yet her room is a mess. She glues broken plates to the top of the end tables — white on white – what a waste. Then she spends hours using spices to create a mosaic floor that looks more like a bad paint-by-numbers kit. At the last moment, she realizes she has nothing for the walls. Really? This woman is a professional stager? I don’t see her winning this thing at all.

The judges deemed that Doug, Karl, Bret, Leslie and Kellie didn’t get top honors, but were safe. That left six designers. The top designers were clearly Kevin, Mark and Tyler. I think it was a difficult choice between the latter two, but Mark’s airplane room made him the week’s Top Designer.

Cathy, Meg and J made up in the Bottom Three, although Cathy is quickly saved (but the judges told her to start being less controlled or she’ll be gone soon). I think that Meg’s easy camera presence saved her and J is sent packing. She is very gracious about it.

There doesn’t seem to be anything gracious about next week, watching the preview. It looks as if it’s the infamous kitchen challenge with teams and a lot of fighting. Cathy particularly came off nasty in the preview, with mild-mannered Karl at his wit’s end with her (remember how well he worked with Kellie—the two practically became besties).

Do you think the right person was kicked off? Did Mark really do the best job? Who is the frontrunner now? Give us your TwoCents…