Final Taste Patrol

Note: Our wonderful Ms. Place is jetting around the globe and asked that we fill in for her this week. Miss you Ms. Place.


Three Hula Men Bobble Award

The Three Hula Men Bobble Award goes to Ed and Carl and their hard working teams. This would not have been much of a season without all the talent these individuals brought to each designer.



Week after week, they were the backbone of each of the finished rooms.

They faced demanding challenges,

time lines,

supply issues and diva designers.

They lost their cool at times and almost a thumb...

but hung in there for each episode. They gave their all long before they learned they might also win $10,000. They did it for the designers, not the money.

Two Hula Men Bobble Award

The Two Hula Men Bobble Award goes to both Matt and Carisa for the designs of each loft.

You both put heart and soul into those lofts ...

but did not sit on your ass and watch the crew do all the work.

You noted their talent and gave credit where credit was due.

Then gave up the diva role, and let them do what they needed to do.

Kudos to both of you for a job well done.

The Trash it Award

The Trash It Award goes to Bravo. What a load of shovable crapola you put this crew through. Watching them work this hard was almost as painful as watching Ed cut his thumb.

First, no freight elevator for moving the tons of materials, appliances and furniture up to the 3rd and 6th floors. Bravo we have 1 word for you, used 3 times. Learn it, remember it, don't let it happen again. LOCATION. LOCATION. LOCATION.

You hand out a wad of money for each of the designers to use, assure them their lofts will be painted and the floors done... BEFORE construction begins. Then you cut corners in doing the floors. WTF!?!?!

More than once, you made our beloved Carl hold his head.

Taste Patrol

Three Hula Man Bobble Award

For taking me away from the cold, I give this week's beach challenge the coveted and much desired Three Man Hula Bobble Award.




As much of the upper and eastern half of this nation was locked in ice, sleet, and raging blizzards, our designtestants got to frolick on a beach with studly folks who looked like this.

Need I say anything more on the subject?

Two Hula Man Bobble Award

The team of Mikey, Felicia, and Andrea wins the Two Man Hula Bobble Award for being as adorable as a trio of puppies.

However, to my humble way of thinking, a cabana must have a roof. Yes, those rafters looked beautiful and geometric against that brilliant blue sky, but Ms. Place’s skin would have burnt to a crisp underneath those naked pieces of wood. She no longer sunbathes, and that cabana, wonderfully romantic as it is, provides no solar shelter.

OH! You expected me to use WHAAAT? Sorry, dahlings, even lotion with an SFP of 1,000 doesn’t work on my fair skin. And I don't care to feel like a lubricated axle. Having said this, those curtains were poetry in motion. They won you the competition. Felicia was right in this instance: Less is more (her words not mine.) I hope your girlfriend's night out at the Viceroy Hotel was delightful. Wish I'd been there!

The Bobble Won't Wobble Award

The Bobble Won't Wobble Award goes to both Ryan and Carisa. This was a tossup, though at times I tended to feel for Carisa because I saw how Ryan, who is much older and wiser, was playing her. In addition, when the woman is assertive, she's labeled a Bitch or diva, but when a man exhibits the same behavior (Ryan) he's merely being assertive. Not.

Ms. Place has been to St. Tropez, as she had an Aunt who lived in Nice, and, dahlings, you've never seen a fancier playground for the rich. This team fell way short of the mark. Even with Goil's soaring rafters, the overall design of the cabana looked cheap and thin and nothing like anything I saw in the south of France.

Carisa and Erik made a great team, so we know she can work well with others. However, she’s still a student. Good lord, girl, you acted as though you have years of design experience and tried to lord it over Ryan, who is an artist of some repute. Bad call. It's not as if your materials and colors reflected the Cote d'Azur. (Azur being the operative word for your choice of blue.) When I saw next week’s previews, I asked myself, 'Is Carisa going to use tomato red and green AGAIN?' If so, you had some nerve ragging on Ryan.

As for Ryan, you deliberately chose tchotchkes as fillers (your words not mine). In my book purchasing all that STUFF was totally inexcusable. I can't imagine that you would approach your art work with the same throw away phrase: I'll just fill this negative space with STUFF. You would have been laughed out of art school and never made it as a serious artist. You should have concentrated on choosing the perfect furniture for a rich St. Tropez experience. And how on earth do you expect candles to stay lit on a beach? Ever heard of ocean breezes? Pffftttt!

I can't forgive either of you for frazzling my new Goil-friend. Here he is looking like he'd spent a night in the House on Haunted Hill. Where's his darling smile, I ask you? What did you do to the bounce in his step?



Trash It Award

The Trash It Award goes to - Ok, Bravo, I’ll say it: Trash the judges and find new ones, or ask this group to make an attitude adjustment. I agree with my teammate Damselfly; the two women are holier than thou. And is it me, or is Jonathan starting to resemble that puppet Charlie McCarthy, parroting the same phrases over and over and plastering a fixed but false smile on his face?

If the judges made sound decisions based on what I see and know, then I could forgive Jonathan for his cloying smiles, Kelly for her inappropriately youthful wardrobe, and Margaret for her haughtiness. The guest judge Katherine was forgettable. I don’t remember a single word she uttered. Latering Elizabeth (what an awful word) was a huge mistake. The Miami Beach cabana had a rich, cohesive look that the St. Tropez cabana lacked.

So you don’t think their deep colors exist in Miami? Yes they do. Here’s a photo of an Art Deco interior at the Royal Palm South Beach on Collins Avenue.

This hotel's color scheme makes Elizabeth's look restrained. I'm not saying that the Royal Palm's room shows taste and class, just that this color combination can be found in Miami and that Elizabeth's design sin was not as heinous as Ryan's, whose furniture and tchotchkes choices were wholly inappropriate. Besides, Ryan has repeatedly demonstrated poorer design choices in past challenges. Why didn't Elizabeth's more sterling record count for something?

Repeat after me, judges: We wuz wrong! We shoulda kept Elizabeth.

Oh, yeah, I forgot, there's an unspoken edict on reality t.v. to get rid of the older contestants and keep the younger more colorful "characters." It sickens me to see this pattern repeated over and over with few exceptions, in this instance Lisa, John, and Elizabeth have been let go. Is there any designer over 40 left in this bunch?

Special Award: Should Never Be Heard in the Light of Day

Once in a while I will add this category when the situation warrants it.

The first Should Never Be Heard in the Light of Day Award goes to, "See you later, decorator."

Nuff said.

Disclaimer: Ms. Place writes her unlaudable tomes in the dark of night wearing blinders and earplugs. She refrains from reading other's contributions or comments until she forms her own forgettable opinions. Only then does she visit other TD sites to discover with dismay that we all have the same reactions to the same events. ARE THERE NO ORIGINAL OPINIONS left in this world?

By Ms. Place

Taste Patrol

Three Hula Man Bobble Award

I anoint Goil as this week’s Three Man Hula Bobble Award Winner. I'm just crazy about our Goil-friend. From his extraordinary talent to his enthusiasm to his cute smile and funky hairdo, I've become one smitten fan.

How sweet are these photos of Goil on the GO? He behaves like a happy kid, always bubbly and smiling and in perpetual motion, even when shopping in Wal-Mart, er, K-Mart, er, Target. Whatever.

And his introduction is so sweetly distinctive: "Hi, my name is Goil as in Gar-Goil."

You got me at Hi, dahling.

Now that my favorite drama Queen, John, has been auf’d, I can only plead to the judges not to prematurely auf you. I am addicted to watching you and seeing what you’ll design next. You’ll go far, Goil-Star, and it doesn’t hurt that you’re a buffo architect and designer. Your enthusiasm is infectious. I loved watching you crawl into that hidey hole and pretend to shoot the judges with a plastic (water?) pistol.

You placed your furniture on wheels so your wee client, Matt, can rearrange his room easily. How cool and practical is that? It's interesting to note how your $8,000 room had a similar feel to the $50,000 room you and Elizabeth designed. Your subtle wall designs have a richness of pattern and color that don't easily translate over the t.v. screen from a distance. The more I see them the more I like them, but why did you choose those kitsch pepper thingies two weeks in a row? Did you think we wouldn't notice? Once cute, twice...repetitive.

Nevertheless, Ms. Place adores her Goil-friend. And she’d like to see him meet a design challenge every Wednesday. (You hear me Bravo? He's a keeper.)

Two Hula Man Bobble Award

My Two Hula Man Bobble Award goes to Erik.

I would have awarded him Three Bobbles for just for being tasty and delicious, but I must adhere to my strict criteria for awarding my precious hula men! Erik's pirate room - fun and age appropriate - is too fussy for my Euro tastes, although the judges obviously liked it. Visually, there's too much going on. Yes, his client, Trent, loved the room, but Goil's young Matt also liked the space created for him. And what’s up with that plant? What ten-year-old boy wants a big old nasty unclimable tree taking up his precious play space? Compare this eye sore monstrosity to the way Carisa incorporated her plants into her overall design. Lush and sophisticated. Buffo, Carisa. You go, girl! I love the bold way you approached this challenge. However, no young boy wants wussy pillows on his floor. When they stop having a useful function, they become superfluous tchotchkes in my book. I know, I know, you bought them for your adult client, but you should have tossed them aside when you realized Kevin could trip over them and break his baby teeth.
Here’s a mantra I suggest you memorize: "Less pillows. Less pillows. Less pillow." And try to refrain from using your repetitive green and orange-tomato red-persimmon color scheme again. This is the second week in a row that you chose this particular color combination. Next time might not be the charm.

The Bobble Won't Wobble Award

The Bobble Won’t Wobble Award goes to Mikey. After meeting his precocious client, Mikey realized that the antiseptic room he designed for a liver-spotted octogenarian might not work for a tender child like Breanna. Spiffing it up with a feathered butterfly, some Diva accessories, and plumpy Carisa-like pillows, Mikey said to himself, "I've used no Chuckie-Cheese aesthetic here! She could live in this room from her teens to her dotage. "

Imagining replacing his treacly Home Sweet Home pillow with one replica after another throughout the interminable ages, Mikey realized he was on to something new: Client retention for a hundred zillion years!
Then, to his complete surprise, the people he'd counted on to judge his room weren't chosen! Those icky judges who had placed him in the bottom two just the week before were putting the cabosh on his designs again. They even discounted the fact that he’d sullied his perfectly manicured nails to paint walls and lay down a wood floor
Life just ain’t fair, is it Mikey? But take heart. If you lose the competition entirely, you could always find a job as a nurse's aid in some assisted living facility. You'd look as cute in a uniform as Renee Zelwegger, maybe even hotter!

Trash It Award


The Trash It Award goes to fashionista Kelly Wearstler! I love your overall style, dahling, and had a post ready to comment on your fabulosity, but I had to trash it in light of your disastrous fashion choice this week.

I even forgave you for wearing spats in Episode One, because we know they are "In" and because the rest of your outfit was spot on. But when I saw you appear in front of the camera this week, I gagged on my Pinot Noir and nearly SPAT out my pate in reflex. Bravo must have known how awful you looked because I can't find a clear large photo of you wearing your 1920's bathing suit with stiletto heels and gloves.

Dahling, stand in front of a mirror and take a good look at that ridiculous outfit. What were you thinking? And at your age too. Were you planning to go on a bike ride after the show? To a gym? To audition as a flapper bathing beauty for a remake of "Some Like it Hot"?

Next week, you divine talented creature, wear one of those gowns you’re so fond of when posing for magazine covers. That should make up for this week's mistake.And yoo hoo, Margaret! Yes you, dahling. Who'd design a room around a cat? Me and an army of pet lovers! Let it be known we took great exception to your silly statement. Mi casa, my pet's casa. At least that's what he tells me every day.

Well, Ta, dear readers, until next week. Ms. Place can’t wait for the next Top Design show to air as she sorely needs an extra hour of sleep!

Submitted By Ms. Place

Note: Any similarity between my verbal diarrhea and anyone else's is purely by accident. I attribute such coincidence to our watching the same garbage week in and week out. Blame Bravo, not me.