What can we expect to see from you, as a judge? All I knew was that I really wanted to be very honest. I would get really mad when people presented things that were afterthoughts, like they were trying to fool us. To play any of us as a fool was very foolish in itself, and I would fist-pound! I couldnât control myself! I would slam the desk and say, âWhat are you thinking? Youâre giving me tea lights on a table? Are you really doing that? Thatâs really what you want to show me? This has been SO done on every show for the past ten years.â We all know itâs kind of a lame effort to fill up space at the last minute. I want you to do something better than I could ever imagine–humble all of us. Itâs a tall order, but the prize theyâre getting on this show is the best gift on television! Where else could you possibly get a career for the rest of your life and millions of dollars invested in you? Thatâs something itâs taken all of us ten years to get to.
Did you enjoy it? It was a b-l-a-s-t. It was the best job EVER. Absolutely.
Whyâs that? Youâre not there trying to convince someone that itâs okay to paint their living room. OrâŠthis stain, I promise you, is going to look good. (Okay, I can definitely relate to that.) It was definitely a more cerebral part of the mind that you exercised. It was fun and challenging for me. It was just wonderful, I really enjoyed it. I taught at art school in New York for quite a while too, so it was a nice way to kind of warm up the educator muscles again.
Where did you teach? I taught at my alma mater, the School of Visual Arts. Itâs a great school. I feel like Iâm educating on all of the TV programs that Iâm on, in some way or another. Design Star is just so much more dramatic and I think it’s solely about the process, the execution, and the concepts. I get such joy out of talking about it. The panel was so much fun, with Vern and Candice. It was a really balanced group. Both Vern and Candice have a more scientific way of approaching everything and I definitely felt I came from the more artistic side of things. And Candice and I are both around six feet tall, so we had a little Vern sandwich!
I wondered how it might be different working with Vern this time around, since you do have a history. It was a very nice reunion. Thereâs not a lot of people whoâve been through the trenches with us. Everybody on that boat with Trading Spaces–whether youâre friends in real life or not–itâs a relationship that you covet always. It was a very special time and a very strange thing to happen to anyone.
How do you think youâre different, and how do you think heâs different? Vern comes from an architectural background and before that, he was pre-med. You definitely can see how his mind works throughout his planning and his process. I come from it more from a design and fine art backgroundâŠwithout his 70 pages of plans. (Laughing.) Itâs more of a sculpture for me and I like to have the flexibility of altering things throughout the process. Do I have a concept and plan? Absolutely. Iâve sourced out everything and Iâve definitely written up two or three pages about what the room is going to feel like and what itâs going to emote. From Vern, youâll see exactly to what degree the wall should be shaved downâŠheâs got all of his angles figured out as someone from a more mathematical and architectural background could. I could not do that. Mine is more heart-driven, his is more head-driven. More cerebral. Itâs a different approach to design and I think everybodyâs happy with the results…itâs just a different ride.
Would you have tried out for Design Star fifteen years ago? How old was IâŠnineteen? Probably not, because I wasnât really interested so much in interiors, honestly. The world of interior design felt a little conservative and stagnant to me at that age. I was kind of focused more towards advertising and packaging–that end of design–but I grew up designing homes with my family. I didnât really know that it would become a relevant part of my life. As a graphic designer, I didnât know this would parlay into interior design down the road. It was a happy accident.
Thatâs something we have in commonâI started out as a graphic designer too. How do you think having a background in graphic design makes you different than other interior designers? I think graphic design is more experimental because itâs a bit more temporary and disposable, so weâre willing to play a little bit more. That is a huge gift. Itâs important to take design seriously but not who you are and how you should approach it. No one wants to live âseriously,â 24 hours a day. Iâm not saying make a joke of it, but I think itâs important to have varying emotional qualities about your design and not just one very serious tone, which I see so often in the interior design world. I think thatâs why I was crazy bored of it as a 19-year old. It just felt so conservative and just the one small facet of the population could afford it. Then when Trading Spaces came to me, I felt like, hereâs my chance to help the people who were like my family. We didnât have that kind of money to hire Designing Women. (The Sugarbakers! What a blast from the past.)
You had asked about shopping in a discount storeâŠof course I do! I think that you have to shop in every store to be a really thoughtful designer. From architectural salvage to discount to high-end. If itâs not a careful balance, you might as well walk down the street with a Prada bag, Prada shoes, Prada pants, Prada shirt, Prada bra and all in a matching pattern! Youâve got to vary up your stuff, otherwise, youâre just a âshopper.â Youâve got to combine the new and the old, the worn and the shinyâŠdesign is all about balance. If someone gave you guff for shopping at Target for Top Design, they can stuff it. They donât know what theyâre talking about.
Yeah, I just thought, are you kidding me? It wasnât even like she even really looked the part, to be so haughty about it. (If you missed it, here‘s the origin of this line of questioning.) Well, I think those are the type of attitudes that really scare people off from interior design and make it really unapproachable. And it shouldnât be! HGTV is so successful at giving people the tools to understand it. Martha Stewart did a great job of paving the way for all of us, but what I think the next generation has had to do is make it soulful, emotional, practical, approachable. You know…we donât have eight hours to weave a basket. We donât have a million dollars to do a living room! Letâs make this tangible for everyone. Itâs really not that hard. Iâm surprised it took this long to do it.
Kelly Wearstler. Design Mess or Design Maverick? I have a feeling you have some kind of beef with Kelly Wearstler! (I think she has a whiny voice, appears vacant, and is highly overrated. After looking at her stimulation-overload of a house in Domicilium Decoratus, I literally needed a nap. As I noted in my Vern Yip interview, I think she’s only gotten worse.)
Oh, you are so right. I just think, why are we lauding this woman? She had her fifteen minutes where she was pretty good but⊠Yes, you see this on dance shows, I think she does what she does really well. Like if youâre a pop and locker on So You Think You Can DanceâIâm totally outing myself for watching that showâand then they ask you to waltz and you struggle a little bit, they say, âthe way you dance is great, weâre just wondering if you can do any other styles.â I think thatâs what I wonder a little about with Kelly Wearstler. I think sheâs amazingly successful and does this beautiful job of this one style. I think she has an incredible eye, letâs just say that. But when it comes to fashion, itâs still a bit contrived for me at times. I think she should lead more with her heart. If I were to give her advice on Design Star? Follow your heart! (I would also tell her to stop dressing like Charlize Theron’s mentally-challenged character in Arrested Development.)
I think thatâs the difference between Design Star and Top Design. The judges on Top Design were so pretentious. There is that air about it, yes. I have an enormous respect for their whole panel, but I think interior design has been stuck in that place for a really long time and it turns a lot of people off.
Iâd asked Vern if competing on HGTVâs Showdown made him more empathetic to what the Design Star contestants were going through and he said, âAbsolutely not!â I agree with Vern. What theyâre being asked to do really isnât anything different than what weâve been doing on camera from the get-go. Itâs not like we went to school to be on camera to do this. We were designers in the world who were plucked up to try this out and youâve gotta learn really quick. But I know theyâre tired and I donât envy their living situation at all!
How is designing for television different from designing for off-camera clients? You can never repeat yourself. Most designers have a style and a color palette that they rely heavily upon for a short period of time. They rotate that through many homes…but on television, you canât. That was a really big point for me when judging, because I would often see a lot of repeats from some of the contestants. If Iâve seen it before, Iâm bored, Iâm changing the channel. Iâve seen that room. Iâve seen you do that before.
You were famous for working barefoot on Trading Spaces. Was there ever a house, without naming locationsâwhere you thought, uh-uh, no way am I walking barefoot in here. Absolutely, but I did it anyway. If Iâd worn shoes in one home because I was grossed out, it wouldâve been kind of obvious. Also, my feet are nothing to celebrate! I played soccer for about fifteen years, I have about two-inch thick calluses on the bottom of my foot, I canât feel a thing! So if I step on a nail, I canât feel it. If youâve got a nasty carpet, itâs not gonna kill me. You want to know what the thing was? I didnât want to ruin my shoes. I was on a tiny little show with a tiny little budget–no wardrobe–I didnât want to buy new shoes, so I went barefoot. There was no other reason than that. I think Iâm banned from going barefoot on HGTV because it was such a big deal on the other network. Iâve gotten to a place in my career where I can afford to buy a couple more shoes!
I can so totally tell that youâre a mom when I see you interacting with the families who have kids. I think thereâs a way it changed you that is really obvious. Thereâs a whole other level of emotion. Especially after coming back to the production, a matter of months after I had her. Working those long hours, you start to transfer what youâre missing from your own home into what youâre working on at the time. You have to, because youâre missing your child. It was really nice to be able to work with other peopleâs children. I felt a bit more satiated. All moms have such a hard time going back to work. It was really hard, but I couldnât think of a better job to go back to. My husband stayed home with her that first year.
Speaking of your husband (former Junkyard Wars host Tyler Harcott), did you really meet him on A Dating Story? Well, we were supposed to. They set us up! Through publicists they asked if we would be interested in doing A Dating Story. He asked me out…he said heâd like to go out with the Viking from Trading Spaces (laughing). The network backed out because if itâd gone wrong, two people from their number one shows wouldâve looked bad. Which is totally relevant, I can totally understand why they said that. But if itâd have gone right, duh, they wouldâve had a miniseries on their hands. They wouldâve had A Baby Story, A Wedding StoryâŠthey couldâve had it all!
And then I also saw something about you being on Faking It? (Another show on TLC, Faking It involved people taking a 30-day crash course in a completely new profession. They had to demonstrate their skills alongside two seasoned veterans, before a panel of three judgesâŠthe judges were surprised to find out about the existence of a newbie in the bunch and were asked to pick out the faker.) I was a little mad, actually, because I didnât know I was on Faking It. They told me, âGen, this is a pilot for a new show we really want you to be on,â blah, blah, blah. We all got Punkâd. It was definitely funny but I was just too exhausted to find the humor in it. They faked me on so many levels. I couldâve been a better sport about it. (I wouldâve been pissed too, if Iâd told my friends and family about being shooting the pilot for a new show and then it turned out to be a big, fat lie. I understand the object was to blindside the judges so they wouldnât know to look for the faker during the demonstrations, but it seems borderline abusive to manipulate a key player in one of your most successful programs. Makes me wonder if they werenât throwing hot young babes at Jon Gosselin of Jon & Kate +8, just to build a certain story arc. Like, if we break âem up after we ship âem off to Hawaii for the big wedding re-enactment, think of the drama!)
Thatâs weird, the article I read said that you were faking it as a fish catcher. Oh, that was another show called SwitchedâŠI think it was on ABC or something. I switched lives with a fish-throwing teenager from Seattle who came and lived my life in my house as an interior designer and I went out to be a fish thrower with his dad. (laughing) The worst part was living in his apartment with five other roommates who were doing beer bongsâŠthat was a little much! I kind of felt like they probably shouldâve put me up in a hotel! Meanwhile, he was sleeping at my house with my husband in the other room. It was so weird! I think their original concept was that I was this Sex in the City girl living in Manhattan, who doesnât know anything about nature and getting her hands dirty–like most interior designers, right? They picked the wrong girl because Iâm from Minnesota, Land of Lakes. What do we do with lakes? We fish! I grew up doing that so this was not unfamiliar. I didnât exactly throw fish, but touching them, getting them on ice, filleting them–I could do it. They tried to contrive a little forced story out of there that really wasnât. I think that made me mad. I was mad on two shows!
You had a lot of pent-up anger! I think so tooâit comes out in Design Star! Laughing. I was like, câmon guys, do your research. You shouldâve picked Dixie Carter for this!
No one would argue that youâre not feminine, but youâre not that scaredy-cat kind of girl. (Like me.) It was a complete mismatch and definitely an experience to remember. Throwing fish was quite fun though, I will say that. Iâd do that any day. Not for a living maybe, but once in a while, sure!
The PR dude breaks in on our conversation to make us shut up and get off the phone, but Genevieve has one more thing to add:
I too mourn the loss of Domino. It was design pornography as we all know it. It was truly, truly missed. Blueprint and Home gone too? Itâs like, seriously. I think Domino hit the hardest though. CĂŽtĂ© Sud, thatâs my substitute. Itâs nothing like Domino but it really is the design porn that you need. Itâs so beautiful and delicious. I think whoâs filling the voids are the blogs, like you. Iâm on the blogs all the time.
Well, I hope youâll check mine out sometime. Iâm on it right now! Iâm reading the whole thing!
Design Star premieres tonight at 9 pm CT. I’ll be comparing notes with Matt Locke (Season 3 runner-up) sometime after it airs on the West Coast and then tomorrow I’ll interview the first designer to get the boot…so watch the show and we’ll dish about it here!
My husband had to tell me to "calm down" when I read the Charlize Theron comment – I was laughing so hard. I'd never thought to compare Kelly to Charlize's character on AD, but you're absolutely right. Hahahaha.
I still don't know how you're scoring all these interviews, but I'm glad you are. They're certainly fun to read (and I think this was my favorite).
I nearly had a panic attack last night when my dvr didn't record Design Star. Thank goodness it re-aired at 1am. (:
Keep up the good work!
Thanks Claire!
RE: "how you're scoring all these interviews…"
Their PR team asked if I'd be interested. I said yah. I think I ended up on their radar thanks to Matt Locke (Season 3 runner-up), who found my blog during his go-round on the show.