Top Design 10/15/08--"Room of the Future" summary

Previously on Top Design: there was a super gimmicky “green” challenge where the designers had to repurpose all the existing furniture and carpeting and whatnot in an office. Then for no reason everyone had to trade offices and make a design work with someone else’s purchases. It would have been hard enough with your “green” nonsense. Eddie won, mostly because Nathan bought great stuff and gave him some good ideas. Wisit ended up going home, because not only did he buy light sage and blue for a “masculine” office, but he took all of Natalie’s bold color and drained it so his room was sad. Also sad was his aria he sang on his way out, that they played a capella over his leaving. Coolest exit ever. (click for more)

Nathan will miss Wisit, but he’s shocked he didn’t win because all his comments were positive. Andrea asked her kids to write letters that she could open in the middle of the show. She’s feeling inadequate. The only opinion that matters to Preston is his mom’s. I see.

India and Margaret tell the designers to imagine it’s the year 2108, and they should design “the room of the future”. That sounds so lame. I mean, it might have cool results, but it sounds stupid. They won’t have real rooms; instead they’ll have those 3-walled spaces like last season. 45 minutes to plan with the carpenters, $7000 to shop, and two and a half days to work.

Eddie wants a fireplace. Um…OK. He describes his room as the lobby for “The Golden Clone” which is a cloning agency. Here, I’ll let him describe it for you: “I mean, no offense, everybody, but just because two people are good looking, sometimes they have really busted kids.” That makes no sense. Also there will be high benches because everyone will be tall. Andrea is scrambling because she hasn’t had time to think of something to do. She’s making a pod? A pod house? That moves? She is doing a pink room if this is her last room. Ondine also wants a fireplace, but she’s thinking of global warming, so it’s a “cooling” fireplace, and there will be fans in the walls. Natalie thought of flying saucers, so she’s using a lot of circles, and a stage of some kind. Oh, wait, it’s an elevated platform. You pick the level you want, bedroom, kitchen, whatever, and the circle goes up and down. Preston is making a space hotel, tailored and clean with stacked crown molding. Nathan is painting black on the walls, and making things flashy. He can do flashy, so that’s cool.

Jo-Ann’s Fabrics time! Nathan grabs Styrofoam to make topiaries. Eddie continues to try to claim the title of “sound bite whore” from Nathan by stating that Jo-Ann’s Fabrics “is like, gold Keds, and a stirrup pant, with a sweatshirt that says ‘Grandma loves her grandchildren.’” But he RUINS it by then buying shiny gold fabric. Sigh. Also, I love Jo-Ann’s Fabrics, so bite me.

Furniture shopping is at Modernica, of course. Andrea is buying a marble table, Eddie is buying red chairs and glass, and Preston has his usual tailored pieces. Eddie rolls his eyes. I just noticed, his shorts hit him at mid thigh. (Kmanpat: “AH HA! And you said that wasn’t cool! I told you! I don’t care if you guys make fun of my shorts, I have hot legs.”)

Painting time. Eddie is flinging red paint spatter all over his walls. Andrea tells him it’s creative. Ondine’s walls are gray with some kind of wallpaper that we don‘t see. Natalie has bright orange. Nathan (and his striped briefs) are painting black. He notices that Preston is also painting black and he gets all agitated. It’s so cute! He makes faces and flounces around all in a huff. Hee. Eddie calls Preston a “one-upper” because he always has to be better than everyone. Nathan stupidly tells Preston how his floor will be so Preston can steal his idea. He calls Preston a copycat, but DON’T TELL HIM YOUR IDEA! Jeez.

Day two brings the designers to Ikea! I wish there was an Ikea here. They only have one hour, which is no where near enough time to shop in Ikea. Ondine loses one of her lists so she can’t find all of her things. She totally freaks out. Nathan and his tight pants make fun of her. She ends up grabbing whatever she can to have accessories.

6 hours left! The carpenters are installing everything. Preston is planning to micromanage his carpenter now so he can just clean later. Nathan has frames for antique plates. Natalie realizes that her bright orange walls and shiny iridescent plastic make her room look like a strip club. Someone tells her this flat out, and she picks up a metal support pole to demonstrate. Eddie offers her all his money, if he had any. He could have left it at that, but no. He plans his perfect person out of the designers left: Natalie’s boobs, Andrea’s body (that would be so ridiculously disproportionate it’s obvious he’s gay), Preston’s lips, Ondine’s eyes, Nathan’s height, and everyone’s sense of humor. Nothing from Eddie himself? (Kmanpat: “Can he use Nathan’s ass instead?”)

Todd time! Ondine talks about her fans that she‘s mounting in the walls, and Todd likes that her design is classic but has future things. Preston’s ideas are tight with his execution. Natalie isn’t changing her chairs at all, so Todd tells her to change them up. Todd always says nice things about everyone. He can’t even say “I’m concerned about Eddie’s blood spatter” but instead he talks about how he thinks it’s weird but Eddie can pull it off. Andrea has to put together a lamp and she looks so lost amidst a sea of plastic circles. I want to help her. I like putting together Ikea furniture. India appears and everyone pretty much starts to cry.

Pop Design time! I hate these stupid twists. Always right when they should be working. Jonathan will quiz everyone and if you get a question wrong, you are out. Winner gets immunity. They‘ll be shown two pictures of similar objects. One is real, one is a remake. Everyone gets the first question right, but Eddie and Andrea miss the second one. I would just be guessing at this point. Eddie pretends that he’s fine with that because he wants to stay in the competition on merit. Preston and Natalie are out next. For the final round with Nathan and Ondine, they get the chance to look at 4 different lamps before being asked questions. Ondine tell us that the first lamp is from Ikea, the second is one of Jonathan’s own design, the third is some vintage piece but she doesn’t know the designer, and the fourth is from some big box store like Target or something. She should be careful, real designers make things for Target. The question is, which one is most expensive? Ondine goes for the Jonathan Adler while Nathan thinks it’s the vintage piece. The winner (once we get back from commercial) is Nathan. Wow, he wins everything. Good thing I like him, because otherwise I would be cursing the heavens.

Everyone returns to work with one hour left. Andrea’s lamp falls apart after she’s hung it, and she takes it down. She’s stressing out and doesn’t know what she’ll do for a replacement. Ondine somehow tips over a can of paint onto the floor. She’s freaking out about how there’s stuff all over the place and she doesn’t think she can get done.

Back in the apartment Andrea calls home. Well, they show her with the phone, but they never show the conversation. In the morning Natalie is feeling pretty good. Andrea, on the other hand, is convinced she is going home. She’s tired of being harped on, and Eddie suggests she just ignore them, or something.

90 minutes to work. Eddie is still painting lampshades. So the reason he didn’t include himself in his “perfect person”? Is because he wants to make 20 clones of himself so they can all run around and get things done because they’ll know what he’s thinking. Because he can’t get enough of himself. I can though. He does admit that sometimes he can. Preston’s hotel is supposed to be in space, so he’s bought square picture frames with pictures of stars, and then some silver spray paint. Natalie’s hung a handle for her hydraulic floor, which is just decorative. It no longer looks like a strip club. Eddie helps Andrea put down silver tape. She and Ondine are really starting to freak out, and then Ondine trips over a can of black paint that for some reason is on the floor by Eddie’s room. Black paint all over the side of the (white) buffet and (white) sofa. Oh no. As we see this disaster, Nathan interviews that when Ondine has a bad day “it’s like the Roadrunner on acid.” It was a total accident, but remarkably Eddie doesn’t start yelling about it, although I totally would.

Kelly makes up for her absence last week by wearing a miniskirt dress that seems to be made out of purple balls of yarn. With a green and white knit cap, purple socks, and green pumps. Like a Muppet gone wrong. Oh, sorry, the cap is not knit, it’s fabric in pleats. Even worse. Natalie: she’s got that hydraulic system, so the floor is supposed to move up and down to the different levels. Of course she can’t make something like that (no one really expects her to, I’m pretty sure). The walls are orange and the back wall is silver. There’s a rug on the black floor, and an elevated platform with come chairs. There’s big black shelving unit screening the sitting area from where everyone is standing. She’s only got one level on display, so the whole concept doesn’t really shine through. Dining table in the corner, and round artwork. The orange isn’t something she’d use all the time now. Ondine: gray walls with a big white square fireplace. Inside the fireplace is a big tube, lit up from the inside. There are 4 box fans mounted in the walls, and some photos also. A white sofa and white chairs, a coffee table, and some black grids for screens. The wall behind the sofa is pink paisley, with two huge florescent lights, because in her future there isn’t any natural daylight. A side table holds some sad looking potted plants. Eddie: the blood spatter is muted by a red fireplace, and the lower half of the walls are solid red. There is a big white sofa (and you can still see bits of the black paint) with black pillows and lamps. There’s some gold artwork, which I think are exhaust fans that are painted, and some tubing. Also there are two red chairs. Big gold squares are on the side walls which help with the spatter. He explains the paint accident. The tubing thing on the fireplace is supposed to be DNA, but Kelly asks if it’s a sperm, and it doesn’t look like DNA but it sure as hell doesn’t look like sperm either. Nathan: black walls with orange accents. The back wall is covered in white circles, like bubbles. They look almost like paper plates with black borders. On one side wall are antique plates on display. He’s turned a cat scratcher into a coffee table. The seating is wicker and leather. Andrea: pink walls (they might be Pepto-Bismol) with a round mirror but also a pass-through cut into one wall. A white table with natural wicker chairs, and some white shelves. A wicker chaise lounge and a zebra hide rug. The pass-through is supposed to be a replicator. She’s cut doorways into the walls, which is cool. Preston: there’s a short half-wall dividing the dining space from the sitting area. The dining space is white with a round white table and red chairs, and metal shelves with plants. The wall is covered with shiny fabric so it reflects the light. There’s a leather lounge, a coffee table, and one chair. The dining area has stacked molding, like siding.

Jonathan says they won’t tell anyone who won because they want to grill everybody. Preston had originally planned to paint his molding another color, but he thought with the red chairs it would be too much. Kelly thinks he should have concentrated on one room, but it was still pretty good. Kelly loved Nathan’s room but it was too cluttered. He knew that, but he wasn’t sure how to get rid of anything without the room looking unfinished. Margaret tells everyone she didn’t think it was futuristic, but India is all, well I agree with Kelly, so everyone laughs. Ondine has big ideas, but she can’t always make it work. She made the fireplace her focal point, because she wanted a traditional room but with a twist. Kelly wishes she had like 16 fans for a focal point. Margaret was reminded of a city bus but the fans. Eddie stepped out of his comfort zone, which Jonathan loved, except for the blood spatter. Kelly liked the accessories but comes out of nowhere to label it “granny gone wild”. Eddie giggles and asks if that’s a video, to hide his anger I’m sure. Natalie’s theme was great, but the execution didn’t follow through. The bookshelf wasn’t planned out that well, because she had a problem that she only figured out after she built the stage. Oops. Andrea’s module pod idea was great but the room itself was too much like a normal modern room. The table and chandelier were too big and ended up being the focus when they shouldn’t have been. She laughs about her Ikea light disaster but no one seems amused.

Margaret starts us off by saying she’s disappointed in Natalie, even though she had a theme. The execution was sad. Jonathan thinks she is talented but too green. Andrea had a better idea, maybe, but India felt it was a cop-out. Keep all the “futuristic” stuff outside so your room can look like any other room. Margaret didn’t get the replicator thing, and Kelly pipes up to say she liked it, and Margaret pats her on the arm all, I know you did sweetheart, grownups are talking now. Andrea is trying. Preston’s rooms are always finished every time. Eddie never listens to criticisms, according to Jonathan, but Margaret thinks he’s moved away from “granny”. Ondine’s rooms always have a mood, but this one has no polish. She has a problem with execution just like Natalie. Kelly and India think Nathan’s room is futuristic, but Margaret has a sour look on her face, and she doesn’t really agree. Nathan is actually able to execute all his ideas.

Preston is the winner this week. Nathan and Eddie look irritated. All three boys get to leave. Natalie stopped short of being innovative, Andrea was her old boring self, Ondine didn’t bring it together. Natalie is out. She makes it backstage before she loses it. She knows it’s the beginning of her career, so she’s excited about that.

Next week: everyone freaks out, Eddie goes crazy. I have no idea what is going on.