12 Interior Designers Begin the Competition for HGTV's Design Star 2012

Pic of Day   

There are 12 contenders competing to be the next Design Star on HGTV. This is one of my favorite reality competitor shows though few watch it and even fewer will read this Blog's updates.

It's not that I have any great talent, or even interest, in room design. I do hang pictures and the like in my home and I tend to lean toward "cute" in terms of my own home décor.

Home interior design are amongst my favorite shows and HGTV is, of course, the master of the genre. And though I'll likely never make light boxes out of coffee tables, much less burn up half a room to "tell a story", I do enjoy seeing the big "reveal" because if I know nothing, I know what pleases my eyeballs.


Luca and Danielle's Great Room

On the premiere episode, the Design Star contenders were charged with re-decorating their space. Said "space" being some sort of mansion somewhere, n o doubt loaned to HGTV just for this series. A complete design makeover is the payment for this provision of temporary quarters.

But I speculate.

The competition began with 12 contenders. Pay close attention to the BIO of one contender, below:

Rachel Kate

Age: 35
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minn.

Instead of joining the family motorcycle business, Rachel followed her passion for design, which she says began in the fourth grade while she was sketching fashion and interior designs for fun. In high school, she developed her natural talents by painting fabrics, sewing clothes and reupholstering chairs to sell to friends and family. Rachel has completed more than 50 home decor projects, 20 full remodels and 20 new-construction projects. Currently, Rachel is a mom who runs her own freelance design business and believes there are no limits with design. She characterizes her style as eclectic rustic, antique French and coastal beach house.

Rachel has been declared the winner of the first two design challenges thus far, the space renovation indicated above, as well as the white box challenge on the episode aired 6/5/12.

The so-called white box challenge involves putting up a bunch of white box type "rooms" that the design challengers must then decorate.

For the temporary living space do-overs, the contenders were put into 2-man teams. Each contender was supposed to add an element in the room that they brought from home, an item that would be an icon of sorts of their personal decorating stye.

Luca and Danielle were assigned the great room, which was decorated a really nice gray. Gray is not a color I'd normally choose but this was a pretty dove gray that was perfect for the big space.

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Hilari and Rachel were assigned a den. A white moose was centered on the wall with a black background. The holder for the tiny television was weird and ugly. Judge Yip loved the coffee table designed by Rachel.



Yuki's "art".  Yuki will
NOT be the next Design Star

Yuki and Stanley were assigned the Designers' studio and goodness me, Yuki came up with the ugliest collage any human being ever dared to call artful. The judges weren't crazy about the neon green and deep purple walls.

Mirera and Jordan decorated a bedroom, Mikel and Britany another bedroom and Kris and Bex yet another bedroom.

Decorative items included saw blades, lattice work, handsome ottomans and a giant matchstick.

Yuki was sent home, Yuki being the creator of the awful collage. Rachel was declared the winner of this challenge.

For the so-called white box challenge on the episode aired 6/5/12, the contenders were given a $1,000 budget for purchasing their decorative needs from a home and garden store. This was also the first camera challenge as these designers, if they want to win their own design show, need to present well on camera.

The submissions were interesting to regard and in my quick scan, I determined my favorite was submitted by guess who? Rachel. She combined pretty patterns on the wall and had a perfectly matched painting. My second favorite was by Danielle, who also had a very graphic bold design on her wall. My third favorite was a design that involved a PVC pipe, something I'd never use in decorating a room of mine, as submitted by Bex.

My least favorite was submitted by Jordan and had a sort of chinese theme but it was very attractive and sure didn't look comfortable. The red bamboo arch made no sense at all.


A TV surrounded by, well I don't know.  But why?

It would turn out that my least favorite was also the judges' least favorite and Jordon was sent home.

Also, my favorite was also submitted by Rachel and again she was the winner of the challenge.

To see the highlights of the white box challenge, click here:


Design Star can be seen on HGTV on Tuesday nights at 9pm.


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