Hildi Jumps the Shark

[cadolphin]

I'm watching Trading Spaces and she's putting cardboard on the wall....and now they are putting cardboard furniture together. :eek:

[Otto]

Ty is evil. I lved how they cut back and forth between the HOs putting up the cardboard with liquid nails and Ty talking to the other HO guy about how tightly liquid nails holds and how impossible it is to get liquid nails off a wall once it's up.

Ya know what would have been cool? If the HOs who knew their neighbors would loathe it just said to Hildi, "look, we know them and we know they're going to loathe it, so we're not doing it. Go buy some paint or get the hell out." They sort of tried to do it at the start of day 2, well after the damage was already done.

I didn't mind the cardboard furniture, I kind of liked the shape of the chairs but not so much the table. I just have this terrible vision of the mother-in-law sitting down on it and having it crumple under her.

[Skammer]

This is the first episode I've seen in a while, but apparently some things never change. Hildi must sit around and think, "How can I create a room that is not only hideously impractical and visually unappealing, but at the same time make it almost impossible for the homeowners to change easily?"

[Bambi Hassenpfeffer]

TS: Family is filming in my area this week. Houseboat episodes. For a peek into her madness, I offer this quote from my local paper.
The other designer, Hildi Santo-Tomas, who declined to give her age, is known for her daring papering of walls with materials such as cardboard. Still, she described her style as "simple, elegant and sophisticated." The business graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has no formal design education. "My design experience is an innate gift," said Santo-Tomas, who owns a design business in Atlanta.
I don't know that I would call it a gift, per se. More like an affliction.

[Bambi Hassenpfeffer]

Forgot the link. Silly me.

'Trading Spaces' goes to sea (http://www.sptimes.com/2003/12/12/Southpinellas/_Trading_Spaces__goes.shtml).

[Mac Guffin]

quoth the lady neighbor to Hildi, concerning the cardboard, after the host sees Hildi and says, "It's the Idea Lady!"

You need to start re-thinking some of those Ideas

[Otto]

"My design experience is an innate gift," said Santo-Tomas Which illustrates the importance of keeping receipts.

[HomerIU]

Jumping the Shark implies that a good thing has gone bad. NOTHING Hildi has ever done has been good. She is the most horrible and impractical "designer" that has ever existed. Why on EARTH would anyone in their right mind hire that lady after seeing how she ruins people's houses on that show?

[Guinastasia]

Didn't she say once that she'd never use any of that in her own home?

[cadolphin]

Originally posted by Guinastasia
Didn't she say once that she'd never use any of that in her own home?

Last week she said she has plain white walls.

[CarlaH1210]

Originally posted by Otto
Ya know what would have been cool? If the HOs who knew their neighbors would loathe it just said to Hildi, "look, we know them and we know they're going to loathe it, so we're not doing it. Go buy some paint or get the hell out." They sort of tried to do it at the start of day 2, well after the damage was already done. Just once, I'd like to see a HO say/do something like that. Absolute refusal to participate in putting cardboard on the walls might have changed Hildi's mind, although I somehow doubt it. I would have made the stupid bitch install the cardboard herself.

I wanted to slap Hildi when the HO's were expressing their concerns about how to remove the cardboard (knowing that the HO's were going to hate it), and Hildi showed total disregard for anything other than applying the cardboard to the walls. She basically said she didn't care about what happens after she leaves. I guess it's a good thing the designers (and I use that term loosely when referring to Hildi) aren't in the room during the unveiling or Hildi would certainly have been killed by now.

[Saint Sparky]

I must be the only one that loves Hildi's wacky and wonderful designs.

Though I have to admit there is a number of Hildi's stuff I didn't like (and the most quoteable line came from a home-owner who was working with Hildi, saying she wasn't worried about her room... since Hildi was here (with her in the other persons house))

[jayjay]

I thought the shark-jumping for this hideous excuse for a designer came with haygate. And silk-flower-gate.

[Mac Guffin]

Mustn't forget Feathergate.

[jayjay]

Ah, yes. Feathergate. I think my brain defensively erased that disk sector so I would never have to remember it...

[cadolphin]

I never saw Recordgate. Anyone want to tell me about that? Please. What other things has she put on walls?

Kathy

[Otto]

Recordgate was not that bad. She took old LPs and put them on the wall. So the wall was pretty much covered with 12-inch diameter black dots with smaller dots of various colors on them. Looked perfectly fine and was an interesting way to cover a wall.

[BiblioCat]

Originally posted by CarlaH1210
Just once, I'd like to see a HO say/do something like that. Absolute refusal to participate in putting cardboard on the walls might have changed Hildi's mind, although I somehow doubt it. I would have made the stupid bitch install the cardboard herself.
There was an episode like that. It was from, IIRC, the second season, and both HOs were named Angie.

Hildi wanted to dye the carpeting orange with a steam cleaner, a technique she'd never tried before (you put the dye where the cleaning solution goes, and then as you "clean," the dye is forced into the carpeting).
The HO flat-out refused, saying it would look bad, and that she didn't want to try a technique that no one had ever used before.
She was very insistent, and said there was no way she'd let Hildi do it.

She offered up a piece of old (or extra) carpet from her attic to test it on first. They ended up getting the other HOs out of her house, so Paige and Ty could sneak into her attic and get the peice of carpet. For some reason, they didn't test it - I think the piece of carpet was too small, and Hildi very begrudgingly gave in and didn't dye the carpet.

It would have looked weird - Hildi had installed 12" base moulding all around the room, and painted it orange, too. The rest of the room was white. With high orange moulding and orange carpeting, it would looked like the room was sitting in a big bowl of Orange Soup.

Okay, topic. It's getting so I think Frank's rooms (and even Kia's rooms!) look better than this crap Hildi does. If I signed up for this show, expecting $1,000 worth of professional design work and materials, and I got cardboard glued to the wall and cheesey dime store cardboard furniture, I'd be pissed.
She does this stuff purely for the shock value. There is no way she could have thought that looked good.

[cadolphin]

I didn't discover Trading Spaces until about 6 months ago. Did they hire Hildious for her outragious plans? Is that what she's always been known for or has she digressed into this attention seeking behavior?

Kathy

[ivylass]

How did the HO's react?

cadolphin, in another TS thread, one poster had a good theory about Hildi's designs. Basically, Hildi doesn't work for the HO's. She works for Banyan. Banyan wants ratings. What better way to get ratings for your boss than to do something controversial and outrageous? I guarantee you, if she went to a prospective HO who had hired her and presented them with a plan of supergluing cardboard to the wall, she would have been fired on the spot. No sane person is going to agree to that.

I guess that's why Vern has left :( Not enough angst and controversy.

[cadolphin]

Vern left??? I didnt realize that. damn

The HO didn't like it but were polite.

Kathy

[Papermache Prince]

Has Trading Spaces been satirized on any shows, like SNL or The Daily Show? Used as a plot on any tv sitcom?

[ivylass]

According to TWoP, Vern has left "to pursue other interests."

:(

It will be interesting to see what happens now. I know the HOs had to spend thousands of dollars fixing the Flower Bathroom, and it took the HOs 80 hours to pull all the hay off the wall.

[cadolphin]

80 hours

wow

[KSO]

Originally posted by Papermache Prince
Has Trading Spaces been satirized on any shows, like SNL or The Daily Show? Used as a plot on any tv sitcom?

Mad TV satirized it--all I remember is the guy playing Frank saying he was going home to his wife and Paige saying "You have a wife?"

[cadolphin]

Vern was my favorite.

Sniff

:mad:

[bobkitty]

Anyone else catch that Hildious wasn't actually using liquid nails? She was using adhesive caulk (which made Ty's exposition when he was showing the HO how to use LN even more amusing- "You don't want to confuse this stuff with adhesive caulk..").. liquid nails is never white, and doesn't shoot out of the tube like they showed.

Mr. Kitty and I couldn't decide if she is plain stupid or plain hateful- there's **no way** to get liquid nails off a wall. None. You can't even sand it down and ever expect it to look right. The only way the HOs could fix that room (even with the adhesive caulk instead of liquid nails) is either nail up furring strips and re-sheetrock the whole room, shrinking it overall, or yank out all the existing sheetrock and replace it. So, did she actually think they could take it down without problem, or was she well aware of the potential issues and downplayed them?

I'm beginning to think she's embezzling. $350 for the bed, $20 for the cardboard- what the hell did she spend the other $500 on? She never gave Paige a straight answer on that. Gods, I hate her. Hate, hate, hate, hate.

But best line of the night? The female HO, coming out at the second reveal, "Do you think it's even?"

Frank's room, incidentally, was beautiful. And props to Ty for building a lovely bed.

[BiblioCat]

Originally posted by bobkitty
Mr. Kitty and I couldn't decide if she is plain stupid or plain hateful-
...
Frank's room, incidentally, was beautiful. And props to Ty for building a lovely bed. I think she's just mean and hateful. Her remarks last week that her whole house is white proves that. She'd never have this stuff in her house, but she loves inflicting it on other people.
The shit she puts up on walls is just beyond normal. With all due respect to Otto and the records (which I hated), gluing things to your walls as a design feature just isn't normal.
At least with the record albums, the damage wasn't quite so permanent.
I think this one will be a lot like the Hay Wall and Flower Bathroom - new walls all around, at great expense to the HOs.

HOs are going to start "protecting" their walls like they protect certain pieces of furniture. "You can paint the walls, but I don't want anything glued to them."
And you know, cardboard has a smell. Wouldn't that room smell funny?


Frank's room was very nice. I loved the new linens on the bed. That dark cranberry color went well with the dark furniture.
I thought painting the ceiling that darker color would make it seem closed in, but it looked nice.

[bobkitty]

Originally posted by BiblioCat
And you know, cardboard has a smell. Wouldn't that room smell funny?

Not to mention the potential for bug infestation. Silverfish and other little critters *love* cardboard, and the bug season down here is a lot longer than up north.

On second viewing (it's on right now), Hildi was using GE silicon adhesive caulk (sad that I can recognize such things from the tube), which would be *slightly* easier to remove, in that it wouldn't take out HUGE CHUNKS OF THE WALL. However, even if they could get everything off, the HOs would be forced into a stucco-type treatment on the walls- they'll simply never be smooth.

HATE HER.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry this time around at Ty's comments.. he and Frank obviously knew what was going on next door. Yeesh.

[picunurse]

Did anyone see the episode when she glued MOSS on the bedroom walls?!? the HO came in with their eyes closed & the husband said " oh man, something stinks!" When they opened their eyes they couldn't speak. the wife cried.
Ugly wasn't enough, stinky wasn't enough. The mold alone would make it unlivable. Then there are the inhabitants of the moss. .. Sweet dreams..

[jayjay]

That would seriously be one of my absolute restrictions if I knew Hildious was going to be designing my room.

"She can't touch the walls!"

[Morgyn]

What I don't get is how no one objects to her wall treatments on the basis of safety. I dunno about you, but I think cardboard (or feathers) on a wall is a fire hazard at the very least.

And those who think Hildi does this only on TS are right. I saw her on a Designer's Challenge show and she did a beautiful job--if I remember correctly, the homeowners selected her design. All I can think is that she regards the TS homeowners as guinea pigs for testing ideas.

And, damnit, I didn't know Vern had left, either. Wah!

[Guinastasia]

Originally posted by picunurse
Did anyone see the episode when she glued MOSS on the bedroom walls?!? the HO came in with their eyes closed & the husband said " oh man, something stinks!" When they opened their eyes they couldn't speak. the wife cried.
Ugly wasn't enough, stinky wasn't enough. The mold alone would make it unlivable. Then there are the inhabitants of the moss. .. Sweet dreams..

That wasn't Hildi, that was Genevieve. This time, TS took it down because the HOs had allergies.

Seriously, I was talking about this with my mother. Her defense of it is, "Well, you agree when you sign up!" However, I have a real problem with the damage that Hildi has inflicted on the HOs and that they had to pay out of their own pockets. I think if something is seriously damaged and will cost big bucks, TS should pay for it.

Especially since they have a clause that you can't sell any of the stuff from the show on eBay afterwards. What the fuck is up with that?

Yeah, Hildi is there for the ratings. But she's still pretty evil.

Silverfish? Oh, I HATE silverfish! They look like tiny leeches! I scream whenever I see them and stomp on them. *shudder*

[RickJay]

She's an elitist twit who does it just because she can. She doesn't give a crap about the owners of the home because they're poor (by her standards) so the hell with them; their property is worth no more than her having fun with it.

[The Scrivener]

I can see it now: an underground cell calling itself the "Fans of Trading Spaces Anti-Hildi Brigade" taking advantage of Hildi's scheduled time on the road to break into Hildi's antiseptic, white-walled domicile and, uh, "decorate" it in her own signature style -- doing the exact same things to her that she's done to others.

[cadolphin]

Originally posted by The Scrivener
I can see it now: an underground cell calling itself the "Fans of Trading Spaces Anti-Hildi Brigade" taking advantage of Hildi's scheduled time on the road to break into Hildi's antiseptic, white-walled domicile and, uh, "decorate" it in her own signature style -- doing the exact same things to her that she's done to others.

Where do we sign up? :D

[Rico]

I hereby call the first meeting of the FOTSAHB to order.

Now, what should we do Hildi's living room as?

[The Scrivener]

Well, that cardboard was pretty hildeous.

Presumably she's done bedrooms, living rooms, dens, kitchens,... no? It then becomes a question of picking the ugliest, least practical, most hazardous, etc. examples of each. After that, it'll be drawing up lists of required materials.

Now, who's going to be responsible for procuring several gallons of ugly orange paint? :)

[Kyla]

Originally posted by CarlaH1210
Just once, I'd like to see a HO say/do something like that. Absolute refusal to participate in putting cardboard on the walls might have changed Hildi's mind, although I somehow doubt it. I would have made the stupid bitch install the cardboard herself.


I saw that happen once, but it was with Doug, not Hildi. He wanted to install a mirror over a mantelpiece and the helpers flatly refused to do it, saying they knew their friends would hate it. He threw an absolute fit and attempted to do it by himself. When it didn't fit the spot in the end, the helpers gloated and Doug pouted. What a jerk. If Vern's left, there's no one on that show I'd let anywhere near my apartment.

[Cat Whisperer]

We just tuned in for the reveal on the cardboard fiasco - we couldn't watch a whole hour of Hildi wrecking someone else's home. The lady's response was great - she was trying so hard to stay positive, but she couldn't keep it up when she went over to her friend's room that she had made beautiful. No, it wasn't even - you guys got royally screwed. I guess the up side of this is that the screwed homeowners know how to make a beautiful room now, so they can re-do their cardboard nightmare like their neighbour's room.

(ps - I've seen a couple of episodes with Doug pouting/storming off the set - what a prima donna. I thought there was going to be a fistfight on one of the shows with him - it probably was the one with the fireplace mantel he wasn't allowed to completely ruin.)

(pps - I think we should do every surface of Hildi's house in a different, horrible glued on type of crap that she's done in other people's houses.)

[Czarcasm]

Originally posted by Rico
I hereby call the first meeting of the FOTSAHB to order.

Now, what should we do Hildi's living room as?

It would be totally wrong and completely illegal to break into Hildi's house and glue moss over her heating units and hay around her air conditioning vents, and you shouldn't even think about painting over her fabric and leather furniture with maybe a pastel pink or royal blue. And putting odd bits of rusty yard debris on the walls and ceiling using liquid nails? Put that out of your mind right now, people!

[The Scrivener]

Well, Cz., I did suggest we begin with orange paint.

;)

[cadolphin]

Originally posted by Czarcasm
It would be totally wrong and completely illegal to break into Hildi's house and glue moss over her heating units and hay around her air conditioning vents, and you shouldn't even think about painting over her fabric and leather furniture with maybe a pastel pink or royal blue. And putting odd bits of rusty yard debris on the walls and ceiling using liquid nails? Put that out of your mind right now, people!

Oh, but dear Czarcasm. We would never think of breaking in and putting used kitty litter on her walls with liquid nails. Even though she'd like it. She loves new wall treatments.

Kathy

[The Scrivener]

Kitty litter on the walls? Oooh, I love that idea!

[Sapphire Bullet]

Usually when I see Hildi screwing up like this, I just roll my eyes in disbelief at her stupidity, but this one had me feeling intensely hostile - especially when I saw the cardboard FURNITURE.

You sign up for a $1000 renovation and get CARDBOARD FURNITURE?! I think I would have refused to be a part of that show. I'm sure there are rules about it, but if you were to sit in themiddle of the floor and refuse to lift a finger, what can they do? It was obvious the couple working on that room felt terribly after they saw how nice their bedroom looked.


Hildi is evil and must be destroyed.

[Siege]

Dopers, I've got the perfect solution for at least one of Hildi's rooms. Given her past history, why not redo one in a classical style reminiscent of one of her designs -- put feathers on the wall, all right, and afix them with tar? ;)

On a more practical (and legal) level, I'd suggest that, next time TS comes to a city everone who signs up should do so with the caveat that they will not participate if Hildi is the designer -- a good old fashioned boycott.

I'll also point out that there were lit candles on that cardboard furniture in that cardboard room at the reveal. Methinks the local fire marshall may not be all that happy.

I like Trading Spaces. They've shown some wonderful ideas and, if I had a workshop, I'd be yielding to my temptation to try a few of the storage units they show. Hildi, however, seems to be trying to be the archetypical snooty designer who is arrogant enough to have no concern for the client's tastes or for practical concerns, only her own vision, even if that is the client's nightmare.

CJ

[TeaElle]

Hildi would be the archetypal snooty designer if she were a designer at all.

However.

As Mrs. Santo-Tomas has no formal training in design whatsoever, I don't think that she deserves the title of designer. She's a designaster.

I'm in favor of splattering a thousand different colors of paint all over her pristine white walls and furniture, since she's shown her passion for spattering and for paint on upholstered furniture in the past. That'll learn her.
------------------
So Vern is officially gone? What about Gen and Laurie? Have they done any shows this season at all? I can't remember if the last Gen show was this season or last. (Philadelphia, she did the cool room for the little boy.) I know that we haven't seen Mrs. "I'm stuck on one side of the color wheel" Hickson-Smith since, wow, I don't think we've seen her since Crazy Jessie's brown living room debacle. Yikes.

[The Scrivener]

"Let a thousand flowers bloom." -- Mao

On her bathroom walls, of course!

[BiblioCat]

Laurie's still around. She did a living room recently.
She painted it deep purple (NOT yellow - gasp!), and had a bit of a debacle with a light fixture that didn't work, and made fugly "art" out of placemats.

[jeevmon]

What I found especially hilarious was placing the tea lights in the cardboard room at the end. Yes, that's a good idea, Hildi- put open flame in a room decorated entirely with quick-burning cardboard.

She is completely selfish and psychotic. And she's still on the show, while Vern, who never produced a room that I didn't love, is off. Gah.

[Philster]

The only thing Hildi decorates is the Nielsen rating sheets. Someone at TLC has those puppies as wallpaper, and that's the only decorating she needs to be good at. All the other simple, clean and elegant redecorating shows don't rank.

The whole ad push for TS was dropped jawed owners who wanted to kill the decorator/other HOs.

I'd let Vern touch one room and that's it for my willingness to let them decorate for me.

[SuperNova]

Hildi should be forced to live in a house where every room was one she designed for someone else.

Plain white walls! God. Obviously she doesn't like her designs that much. I just take solace in the fact that once Trading Spaces goes off the air, she'll never have another job.

[ZipperJJ]

Isn't Hildi the one who also covered a teetotaling family's kitchen with 400 wine bottle labels? Covered over their wallpaper, that is. The neighbors bought the family a steamer as a "don't kill us, it was her idea" gift.

She painted the same family's kitchen cabinets black after the family said "we want something bright..."

Hideous!

Gotta give props to Frank. His style is toning down immensely.

[dorkusmalorkusmafia]

The Scrivener mentioned breaking out orange paint on the previous page. I could only imagine he wanted it to paint the carpets after adding some texture styrofome or sand to it.

[The Scrivener]

More wonderful ideas! My, the creativity on display is simply wonderful, innit?

If Hildeous didn't have carpets, that paint should look very good on her upholstered furniture. Or her ceilings. Or both.

BTW, dorkus..., it's "she". :)

[dorkusmalorkusmafia]

Apologies for giving you the ftm operation. :) I didn't see this one but I gnerally don't watch it very often. Anyone have links to some pictures of the cardboard room?

[PalJuicy]

She likes to spray paint fabric furniture, too.
She painted a white chair pink, left it outside and it rained during the night. Had to buy a new chair.
I think she also spray painted an heirloom chair black.

Just beyond stupid.

[ivylass]

She also put flower stickers all over the heirloom chair.

It's like watching a train wreck...you want to look away, but you can't.

[BiblioCat]

Originally posted by PalJuicy
She likes to spray paint fabric furniture, too.
She painted a white chair pink, left it outside and it rained during the night. Had to buy a new chair.
I think she also spray painted an heirloom chair black.

Just beyond stupid. That chair was in the Records-On-The-Wall room, and it wasn't rained on. The chair looked like crap, though.
The room with the rained-on furniture was the infamous Circus Tent Room, where she put heavy alternating hot pink pink and white curtains all over the wall from a central point on the ceiling, and it looked like a circus tent.
SHe sprayed painted the HOs original sofa and loveseat (or sofa and chair) hot pick and left them outside (under a tent) overnight. In the night while it rained, the tent got knocked over and the furniture got rained on and ruined.
On the TWoP boards, there was some speculation that either a crew member or the HOs working with her accidentally-on-purpose knocked the tent over because the furniture looked so crappy.

[Greywolf73]

Wow. Just when I thought she couldn't top the hay on the walls debacle...she brings out the cardboard furniture.
Why is there even a market for cardboard furniture? What possible use is there for such a thing?

I strongly suggest that no one breaks into Hilde's home (her so-called "castle") and decorate her walls with used hay imported directly from the floor of the nearest horse stall. Nope, that would just be wrong...

[voguevixen]

I didn't think the cardboard looked that bad. It would've looked better if they'd used maybe wallpaper paste to ahdere it, and maybe tried to work with the corrugations like a pattern. (I think if they'd cut the cardboard into squares and put them up in alternating directions it would look pretty sweet.) The cardboard furniture looked sorta cool too, although isn't going to take any spilled drinks well, haha.

I had to wonder why Ty made those bed slats so super-fancy when he knew they'd be covered up by a mattress anyway. ?!?!

Frank's room sucked, like all his rooms. BORING. Why bother using real wood wainscot when he was going to paint it white? Blah.

[picunurse]

Could it be that Hildi is psychophrenic? After she meets the families whose houses she'll be doing, she decides she hates them and must punish them. She has certainly punished my sensibilities more than once.

[picunurse]

OMG! did I write that?! I meant Schizophrenic! Am I having a stroke?

[Cervaise]

Originally posted by The Scrivener
Kitty litter on the walls? Oooh, I love that idea! Used kitty litter.

In stripes. Alternating between litter that's been used to soak up driveway spills and the more conventional nuggety kind.

Yeah.

[Kallessa]

If Hilda has hardwood floors, the orange paint could be used on them and the walls--and the ceiling could be a big cloth, artistically draped to catch the maximum dust and still be impossible to clean.

Maybe we could set up blowers in the corners of the living room, fill the room with feather and hay, and then turn on the blowers. Living in a perpetual swirl of feathers and hay--a romantic dream.

[dancefan]

if they refuse to follow their "designers vision". The contract that the HO sign allows the designer to get away with totally ruining good furniture and interior walls in exchange for the HO appearing on TV.

Homeowners have protested Hildi's designs but the edited televised version of the makeover leaves the HO protests on the cutting room floor.

[Bambi Hassenpfeffer]

Originally posted by BiblioCat
the infamous Circus Tent Room
"Magenta, taupe, magenta, taupe, all around the room." -- Hildi Santo-Tomas.

Please, let's not forget the giant wall mural of herself she had her team paint for her. Nor can we forget the Shards O'Glass fireplace, the copper bust of herself, and the use of hard-boiled eggs as decorative elements.

Hildi is by far the worst designer, and the worse part of her shtick is that she is so horrible on purpose. I mean, Kia is pretty awful, but at least she seems to mean well. Hildi's just a bitch.

[cadolphin]

Originally posted by Bambi Hassenpfeffer
...and the use of hard-boiled eggs as decorative elements.



:eek:

[CrazyCatLady]

I'm with Cathy on the hard-boiled eggs. I just gotta know more.

[bobkitty]

Originally posted by CrazyCatLady
I'm with Cathy on the hard-boiled eggs. I just gotta know more.

The dining room from hell- all black walls, black ceiling, super-bright yellow furniture and The Light Fixture To End All Light Fixtures. The HOs who were working with Hildi commented that the table looked like an egg (it was oval-ish, and SO VERY YELLOW), so in retaliation she bought multiple dozens of eggs, had Paige boil them up, and stuck them in vases on the shelves and on the table.

TWOP review here. (http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/story.cgi?show=87&story=5257&page=1&sort=&limit=)

[Cat Whisperer]

Thanks, bobkitty. That was a great article. My favourite line:In sum: it's a nasty room that Hildi pulled out of a particularly tasteless part of her ass.
I have to use that in everyday conversation now.

[BiblioCat]

IIRC, the Circus Tent room was the one where the HOs sold everything on Ebay afterwards, which made the producers rewrite the contracts expressly forbidding HOs from selling stuff.

And yes, the Black Dining Room from Hell was particularly awful. Black paint on the walls and ceiling, screaming electric neon yellow paint, the 70s disco light fixture and eggs. It was truly Hildi-ous. I remember Amy Wynn grimacing while making the light and saying, "It's great!" It was so obvious that she hated it.

[Cliffy]

I liked the bathroom with the flowers.

That said, anyone who lets Hildi touch their walls is an absolute moron. Although Mrs. Cliffy still watches the show, I had to stop because seeing Hildi (and sometimes Doug or Laurie) do these horrible things to rooms made me really nervous.

On the upside, we were inspired by Trading Spaces to ventian plaster our breakfast room, and it looks really good.

--Cliffy

[Philster]

Don't fret, they will all die slow deaths from breathing in the formaldihyde that is used to manufacture the MDF board they use for everything.

[Dung Beetle]

I'm proud to say I did not watch TS last Saturday night! I could have, but I just said no to Hildi. Speaking of saying no to Hildi, wouldn't that be good for the ratings as well? I'd really like to see an episode where the homeowners said, "Well, maybe you have plenty of money to redecorate with, but for my friends, this is it, and I refuse to let you destroy this room. Everything you do looks like crap!" Then the homeowners sit down and have a Coke, shaking their heads periodically at Hildi as she tries to convince them to carry out her scheme. Oh yeah....that'd be good.

[moriah]

Here's one for Hildi's house:

Buy a thousand hammers. Swing at a sheet rock wall (and hope you miss a stud). The let the hammer just hang there from the hole in the sheet rock.

Next, get neon orange paint and mix it with polyurethane. Then spray paint it over the wall.

Now you have a monochromatic wall finish AND work of art! Best part is that the polyurethane keeps it all in place and impossible to remove.


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picunurse wrote: OMG! did I write that?! [pyschophrenic] I meant Schizophrenic! Am I having a stroke?

No, you were thinking of psychotic and schizophrenic. You accidentally created a portmanteau word. I like it. I think I'll use it.

[Chanteuse]

For Hildi's walls: Squirt glue in random squiggles all over. Take handfuls of sawdust and fling it over the glue, letting it adhere wherever it will. Glue old frayed rope in a swag pattern at the top of each wall. In random areas, "distress" the walls with a hammer.

Floors: Scattered hay, and more sawdust over a red and black check painted floor.

Furniture: Hay bales upholstered with black and red bandanas for seating. End tables should be old cable spools covered with plastic doilies.

Odds and ends: Using old railroad ties as shelves, decorate room with tacky Stuckey's souvenirs made from dried turds, shellacked cow pies, and Poopets (decorative animal-shaped garden fertilizer figurines made from--guess what?).

Lighting: In various places, suspend salvage store lanterns from the ceiling, using more of the aforementioned old frayed rope.

For ambience, you could toss in some recordings of cows (a little "mooooooo-d" music?) and some square dancing tunes.

Hey, I figured that since she likes to make everyone else's home look like crap...

[Wicked Blue]

Ok, so she's used moss, cardboard, feathers, flowers, records and hay.
How long before she smears shit on the walls in a decorative swirly pattern?

[D.E.S.K.Top668]

I think the best wall treatment for Hildi's house would be Hildi herself. Would liquid nails hold her weight?

The cardboard room was awful on so many levels. Even if the H.O.s liked it, how do you clean a cardboard wall? Of course, the second somebody brushes against them, it'll get crushed. Not only should TS pay to have the room redone, they should make Hildi do all the labor. Maybe a couple of days of hanging dry wall will make her rethink some of these ideas

As for record-gate, I hope she used old, scratched up, impossible to play records. Somehow I doubt it though

Peace - DESK

[Guinastasia]

Originally posted by BiblioCat
IIRC, the Circus Tent room was the one where the HOs sold everything on Ebay afterwards, which made the producers rewrite the contracts expressly forbidding HOs from selling stuff.


Yes, but WHY? I mean, after they leave, everything in that room belongs to ME.

As far as cardboard furniture goes-um, wouldn't it fall apart if you sat on it?


And for the last time, it was GEN that used the moss. Not Hildi.


Let's see, Hildi's house...okay, you know they say disposable diapers are NOT biodegradible. So, instead of throwing them into a landfill....

[BiblioCat]

Originally posted by Guinastasia
Yes, but WHY? I mean, after they leave, everything in that room belongs to ME.

As far as cardboard furniture goes-um, wouldn't it fall apart if you sat on it?


And for the last time, it was GEN that used the moss. Not Hildi.
You got me. I feel the same way. You put it in my house, it's MINE. If I want to sell it, tough shit.
When Frank did that little girl's room last year and let Ty design the Scary Ass Monkey Desk™, a lot of posters at TWoP mentioned that they would just sell it on Ebay, and old-timers brought up the fact that the HOs aren't allowed to do that anymore, after the Circus Tent fiasco.
Maybe it's to prevent people from going on the show with the express purpose of selling Trading Spaces memorabilia?

The cardboard furniture does have supports (made out of cardboard, naturally - they were triangle-shaped things on the sides of the chairs), so it will hold an adult, but it's still made out of freaking cardboard! It's kind of the same principle of that trick of accordian-folding a dollar bill and using it to hold a book.
I can't imagine that they will actually last very long. You can't set a drink on the table, and they'd absorb odors like crazy, not to mention the bug factor.


Gen's Moss-on-the-Walls room is one I've never seen, and I'm dying to catch it on a repeat.

[MinniePurl]

I read (I think it was on the TWOP message boards), that one set of homeowners tried to stand up to Hildi and not do whatever ridiculous, ugly thing she wanted to do to their friend's room. However, they got told by the production company that if they didn't participate, they'd be sued for breach of contract! I think they must have put that in after the one woman sucessfully told Hildi that she was NOT dying her friends carpet orange with Rit in a carpet cleaner. I would never go on Trading Spaces unless I could be assured Hildi would NOT be working on my house. I've also read they don't tell the homeowners who the decorators are before they start shooting, because people who have found out they are getting Hildi have tried to back out!

[voguevixen]

I don't know, but if Doug started in with his shitty "venetian plaster" with me I'd put my foot down and not do it. I'd give them plenty of footage to put in the show over it too, starting from when he would argue that he'd usually charge $20,000 for the same thing for his regular customers. "Hello! People will spend an extra $20,000 for an Acura when it's just a Honda with a different emblem on it -- just because someone is stupid enough to pay through the nose for something means it's worth the money or LOOKS GOOD!*"

*(This goes back to my ranting in prior threads that the "venetian plaster" technique looks like you cheaped out and hired drunk-ass bums from the street to plaster a room for you. Different strokes, etc.)