Frank and Laurie with new carpenter Carter in Greenville, SC, both redoing family rooms.
After the disaster last week that was Hildi, I thought this episode was rather tame. The thing that bugged the crap out of me was the crooked crown molding on the fireplace. It was built at a slant, probably to follow the line of the ceiling, but it was still crooked. It made the fireplace look like an optical illusion, especially with the straight line of the mantle. Frank filled in the rectangles on the fireplace with paper, but he left white lines in between the sheets. I thought it would have looked better if it overlapped.
I liked the warm color on the walls, but I was a little confused with his color scheme. Navy blue curtains, red slipcovers, pink and green pillows? Still, he gave them badly needed storage, and it was an overall improvement. I wasn’t a fan of the slipcovers, since they looked like slipcovers. I’ve seen Edward do slipcovers that don’t look like slipcovers.
Laurie did green again, and I guess the stripes weren’t too bad. At last she didn’t call them “orthogonal.” She just kept blabbering on and on about the fabric, and I know she explained the color scheme twice. And what the heck was that light fixture she put up? I did not like that at all. I thought the doors on the entertainment center were a nice touch, but you could see the hinges. Couldn’t they have hidden them or painted them?
As far as the new carpenter, all I can say is hummina hummina hummina.
I liked the main green on Laurie’s walls, but I thought that olive green clashed horribly with it. Maybe it was just my tv, but they looked really awful together to me.
I liked Frank’s wall color and the fireplace treatment, but the navy drapes and the odd-colored pillows on the couch were just so-so and the storage boxes looked very…boxy.
It’s bad enough Laurie has her fanphobia, but she always picks the ugliest things to replace them with. “I want it close to the ceiling,” she says and then has him hang the damn thing lower than the fan was. Does she think we’re retarded?! I can’t stand that woman.
On a lighter note, it was nice to see somebody other than Ty as a carpenter. He has really been getting on my nerves. I hope they pick a hottie (female) designer as one of the new ones. Still, I can’t complain, since Carter is still only about a sixth as hot as Paige.
I do wish Laurie had pulled some of the red/crimson/burgundy that was in that print. IIRC, there was a small bunch of berries in it that were in the red family. I think that would have made a big difference in the room.
Both designers did a good job coming up with attractive alternatives for toy storage. That one room looked like it was ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag with all those toys cluttering up the place.
Amy Wynn was far hotter than this new guy. And I liked her personality better. This guy seemed too goofy. Amy is my dream girl, she can help with home improvement, she’s hot, and I bet she likes football and cold beer.
And what is with Laurie’s fear of fan’s? The fan looked much better than that cheap junk she put up in its place.
Somehow I wasn’t surprised that there was footage of him making a mistake.
Somehow I didn’t care, either.
According to the TS book, they have an assistant carpenter helping with the projects. Probably one who is not nearly as cute and twice as knowledgeable.
Yowza, indeed. My word, he was cute. And not such an assclown like Ty.
I agree about the greens in Laurie’s room. I liked the color on the plain walls, that sort of sagey green. My bedroom is that similar to that color, but slightly darker.
I’m not wild about the horizontal stripes, and I really hated the olive green and yellow with it. Yuck. And I hated the light she put up. That was just flat-out ugly. Though I would have liked to have stood under the ladder in case Carter fell or something.
Frank’s room… I liked the wall color. He called it gold, but it looked pretty tannish on my TV. I liked the navy curtains, too, but the slipcovers were too reddish. If they’d been a darker shade of red, I’d have liked it more. How gross was it when Frank was laying on the HO’s bed, all sweaty?
Although Carter could lay on my bed all sweaty like that…
What?
Bibliocat, thanks for getting us back on track talking about the rooms. I don’t want my husband to think I am just watching TS for the eyecandy. Although the thought of Carter baby lying on a bed…dear me.
Are you as tired as I am of Laurie and her fabric-love? Geez, woman, it is not like the fabric is as good as…Carter. Yikes, there I go again.
I am glad someone else thought her greens clashed. I have to admit that I liked the coffee table, though.
Rooms? What rooms? You mean that annoying filler in between shots of Carter?
Yes! I hate when she buys fabric that’s $45 (or more!) a yard. It wastes so much of her budget, but she thinks it’s the greatest thing in the world. Her weird Southern accent is getting on my nerves, too. It seems like she’s making it more of an affectation than an actual accent.
I liked the coffee table, but the stripes didn’t match up in the middle. And won’t the plexiglass top get scratched? Glass would have been pretty expensive, right?
And that Van Gogh print wasn’t very attractive, IMHO. I thought it was kind of ugly.
And this is the second week in a row that Laurie’s shirt has matched the room colors. Do you suppose she thinks she being cute by doing that?
i tend to prefer tall blonds but even i said, “hey, who’s the rather cute brunet?”
i liked the coffee table in laurie’s room. the stripes are okay. i can kind of understand her love for fabrics. i’ve been spending a lot of time in fabric stores with my cousin, she makes quilted things. i go gaa gaa over ones that have colours i like, then i check the price and put it back. hopefully the fabric i like will end up on the rem. table.
i liked frank’s room a lot. it looked warm and inviting. with kids and dogs the slipcover are going to be just fine. they can pop them into the wash and put them right back on. a tighter fitting cover is quite a wrestle and i wouldn’t wash it as often.
i took a slipcover class last week, and if i did covers like we did in class, it would be lucky if they came off once a year to be cleaned.
I taped the show so that my sis could see the fine hunk of man they have playing the role of carpenter and she wouldn’t stop about Laurie’s greens not matching. (It never occured to me that two greens could clash…)
I would like to remark that even though Carter seemed like a dud personality-wise, I kept having to remind myself that this was his first time with a well-established group who has been working together for years. That has got to be pretty tough. I think he did a pretty good job.
Since there has all this drooling about him, I feel less lascivious remarking that I hope Paige opens more boxes in the future.
Oh, the same goes in my house, Guinastasia. Touch my ceiling fan and I’ll break your fingers.
What’s really annoying about the ceiling fan bit is that in the Southern states (this one was in South Carolina), people actually USE their ceiling fans. They’re not up there as a decorative feature.
I live in Maryland and we use our ceiling fans, both in the summer to help the central AC and in the winter to help the heat. You reverse the direction of the fan blades to augment your main heating or cooling function.
I use the kitchen fan to dry my dishes. I don’t have a dish washer, and I hate drying dishes, so I wash them, stack them in the dish drainer, flip the ceiling fan to “high” and walk away. They’re bone dry in 30 minutes.
And Lowe’s and Home Depot both have a huge selection of really pretty ceiling fans, so if they’re trying to get rid of an ugly “builder’s special” there’s no reason to get rid of one.
Of course, Kia would just glue palm fronds to it…
I didn’t care for the fact that the fabric was wrinkled underneath the plexiglass. Would drive me crazy to live in a room with that.
But on the other hand, knowing that Carter made it…
He can swing his hammer around my house any day, if you know what I mean…
I want to dislike Laurie’s designs but I can’t. Not totally. I too liked the sage green but when the olive paint went up I almost barfed. But later it looked less olive so maybe it was my TV. I did like the fabric with the coffee table but I do recall when she was giving Carter instructions for the table she said “there are children in the house so I don’t want sharp corners on the table.” Hmmmm, looked like perfect 90 degree corners to me! Carter is cute, not obnoxious and I would prefer if Ty went away. Permanently. I liked Laurie’s room a lot. Much better than Frank’s which was kinda boring, almost on the verge of calling it in. I didn’t get the feeling that he was inspired by anything, but at least he didn’t use a zillion paint colors, do bad “country art” or put up a monkey desk. Was I the only one who noticed that he was dripping with sweat? Frank is such a sweetie. He’s the one I would want to work with.
I just started watching this show about 6 months ago so I must have missed the whole “orthogonal” thing. Can someone explain? It must be a Hildi-ism!
P.S. I’d like to see an epi with Carter, Vern and Edward. Nice rooms, non-egotistical designers. I would be one happy viewer.