apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

In my mind Jenn's only shortcoming was that sectional. Sure it sat a lot of people, but it was just wayyyyy to big for the space. I really dug the kitchen with the fire-engine red cabinets (eh, get it?) and liked the howizontal stripes.

Matt's dining room is amazing, but other than that, it was 'eh' for me. The kitchen cabinet color was too drab and that left side was begging for some open floating shelving. The living room was not minimal at all. Between the red chairs and the modern looking sofa that was too big for the space, it really fell flat for me. Also, where the heck are the accessories? I know the home owners have personal stuff, but look at his counters, there is NOTHING on them.

I also must applaud HGTV, I dont know if they woke up, but they gave the last couple of challenges some serious time and money to get things accomplished. I am sure Kim and Todd would have loved hardwood floors and a team of carpenters.

I have to say I felt "eh" about both designs. They were so blah and unimaginative and both felt really unfinished with few accessories. I think I read somewhere that they only have certain stores they can shop from so perhaps that's the problem and I'm being unfairly critical? Between the two of them Jennifer seems like the better decorator and Matt the better carpenter. In the first challenge his giant four poster bed was so unbelievable and the color scheme and accessories so right that I expected more from him. Perhaps the color scheme was Mikey V's?

i agree about matt's staging. minimal doesn't mean no signs of life (like a dining table centerpiece?). jenn's is nice but they said they weren't earth-toned people. red cabinets is not enough color against all that stone/beige/brown.

the rooms are too similar.

jenn is nice but very like what hgtv already has on deck; matt has some great "design" ideas, but when he falters, he completely bags it.

Those red cabinets looked awesome on TV, whereas the brown paint looked hideous. The stain fiasco probably wasn't anyone's fault, but I hate the color he chose as a replacement. Otherwise, I'm not really all that much motivated to even vote. I suppose I'm slightly more interested to see what Jennifer will do next than Matt, but I suppose that has more to do with wishing I could paint graphic designs like she can.

I just have to say that I'm SO glad they did those houses in New Orleans rather than another hotel suite or glass house. Whatever we think of the design, at least two families have a good start on reclaiming their homes. The psychological impact of that must be awesome.

Although HGTV got it right with this challenge and allowing the time and assistance to do the job right - both contestants made big errors.

Jen's white kitchen floor will be a mess to maintain, and what was with the two dining areas and the monster sectional facing into the corner with no tables?

On the other hand, Matt's kitchen was drab and dull, the chandelier in the dining room really should have been round or square rather than rectangular, and the living room furniture choices were poor - a regular sofa with two chairs would have been more appropriate - the lamp on the console was much too short and the minimal artwork looked lost. Plus, the mirror over the TV was too large and the coffee tables under the TV offered the family no storage.

I totally agree parhelia. Seeing the mattress in the middle of the room that functioned as their "couch and bed" was so sad. Seeing their reaction to the new space was wonderful.

I feel like I walked into the model kitchen section at home depot. give me a break, I mean beige kitchen tile the biggest couches in history!? maybe next time HGTV could find a few architects fresh out of school - now that would be interesting...

Cynthia Rowley said that the finalists gbetter and better with each season. Is she sniffing glue? Did the producers pay her a little extra to actually make this quote?

How in the sam hill can you say any of these two decorettes come close to David Bromstead? He may be far from the calibur of say, Jamie Drake, but at least he is creative and consistently implementing design that is both attractive and liveable.

Jenn, Matt and Design Star...I declare all your shows have been canceled.

I looooved the red cabinets, although I agree the kitchen is too dark compared to the rest of the space. Still, it was pretty good for being Jennifer's first kitchen. The white tile floor I noticed was already installed, and it wouldn't have been a good use of time to try and change it.

But..yeah, the couch was too big.

Was this Design Star or Extreme Makeover Home Edition? So much squealing!

I was amazed to see that Mikey V was allowed back on to help... after those gay S&M porno clips of his surfaced on the net a few weeks back, right around the time his "show was cancelled" ...

on a different note... I noticed how flooded the road on the show was after a simple rainstorm and how they said the waters were about 10' high after Katrina... I wonder why the insurance companies allowed the families to rebuild their houses at ground level.. all of this heart ache to rebuild but what happens when the next hurricane comes along?

Mikey V did gay porn? And I missed it? Scuse me just a minute while I dig around for those! :-D

In the meantime: Loved Jen's kitchen, hated the rest of her place. Plain and boring and she could have solved the sofa problem if she'd put it near the FIREPLACE and moved the dining area over where the ginormous sectional is.

Didn't totally love Matt's either. Kitchen fell flat with the cabinets and needed some more texture to it - and if I ever meet him face to face I'm going to slap him for those two freakish red chairs.

But - I'm going to vote for Matt because I think HGTV already caters to the shabby chic/ethnic contemporary crowd, and I think Matt's brand of minimalism can be brought a long way (if done properly) He can focus on aspects of paring down and simple living, which would fill a niche missing from HGTVs lineup of McMansion makeovers.

And if anyone needs me I'm going to be tied up with Mikey for a bit! ;-D

I'm a New Orleans resident and I can explain the flooded road after the rainstorm. That is normal for us. The water quickly recedes as our pumping system gets to work. We have frequent afternoon storms which can dump a great deal of water into the city during a very short time. It can sometimes take a little while (30min-an hour) for the pumps to catch up but they always do.

That scenario is very different from the deluge of water that flooded the city as a result of the levee failures following Katrina. Had the levees not broken, the pumps would have been able to handle the amount of water that Katrina left in the city in a manageable amount of time. It was the levee failures (which were proven to be caused by errors made in their construction by the Army Corps of Engineers) that dumped the catastrophic amount of water in and caused the massive amount of damage and devastation, not the hurricane itself.

Mikey V and gay porn clips? I can't believe I missed that.

These designs are both so overwhelmingly mediocre. I pick Matt, only because he clearly has carpentry skills, and that would be a nice addition to the lineup.

That's funny redshoes, from what I've read, it wasn't the army corps of engineers fault, it was that their budget was cut by 80% in the few years leading up to hurricane katrina. In fact, the they were literary begging for funding. From the Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don’t get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can’t stay ahead of the settlement," he [Army Corps of Engineers Project Manager Al Naomi] said. "The problem that we have isn’t that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can’t raise them.”

thanks for clarifying the whole flooding thing..
I feel bad for those families and I'm glad that at least those 2 out of hundreds got some help.. still, I have this nagging feeling that the same thing will happen again in the not too distant future and we'll see on TV that huge sectional floating down the street... and, while well intentioned, I found both designs rather underwhelming and a bit pedestrian. Also, for three rooms the budget should have been much larger to give them the chance to really showcase their different styles.
and, now, back to MV all tied up.... LOL

I still can't believe they did these in just 36 short hours. I've been working on just where to put my sofa in my new condo since I moved in ... 4 months ago.

And hey -- for all the gigantic sectional haters out there -- the sofa is big, but so's the family. I think it's great that she designed the living room for their lifestyle. With a big family, it's so hard to sit down all together. Now they can! What's cooler than that?

I'm voting for Matt simply because he didn't do what I always loathe on design shows: fill the space with tons of fresh cut flowers and lit candles. Sure, those are lovely, but they are are very temporary and distract from the room the family will actualy live in. Plus, he's great with carpentry and I loved his dining room.

petro, I believe that is referring to getting the levees to Category 5 protection for the future, not referring to the actual levee breaks that caused the flooding. those were proven to be due to errors made in the building of them decades ago.

Matt gets my vote. I love minimalist design and I think he did it well. The large sectional in Jen's room was not a color I'd choose for a family with kids! Loved the ceiling fixture in Matt's dining room. I really liked that room best. I also liked the idea of not having upper cabinets in the kitchen. It makes it more open and upper cabinets are pretty useless for me too. Go Matt!! I think he and Mikey V could do a great job as a team. I also liked that Matt let Jen have Mikey's help first because she'd never done a kitchen. Just shows Matt's a great guy!

First of all, I agree with everyone, both designs were a huge yawn. Second, this is supposed to be a design show. Matt is a carpenter, plain and simple. Third, there is a tie in with suppliers. I am sure both Jenn and Matt were limited to where they could shop. Combined with, they were in New Orleans. Not exactly the mecca of possibilities in contrast to being in New York City or L.A. Next, Cynthia Rowley usually can not string 3 words together. Her 'plug' for this season being better than before had to be scripted by HGTV. Lastly, I think Jenn is far less obnoxious than Matt. And she can paint. Which is a good fit for HGTV.

I agree, the red kitchen cabinets do look great, but what's with the brown paint in both kitchens? And the space between the fridge and base cabinet in Jenn's kitchen really bothers me. I can just imagine the crud that's going to collect there.

I would have also liked to see some table and/or floor lamps by the seating areas in the living rooms.

Why didn't Jenn break up the sectional to create two seating areas instead of having two sets of tables and chairs? I know there were the metal end thingies on the sectional, but so what? Also, the light fixture in Jenn's dining area looks like it's too high.

And that dining room fixture that Matt fell in love with and that "visual effect" he stuck on the wall in the living room (above the TV, no less), UG-LEEE!

If these guys can't even figure out furniture placement, then what's their show going to be like?

Matt is so adorable, I had to vote for him! That chandelier in the dining room is what made it... otherwise I may have voted for Jenn.

25k may seem like a lot of money, but when you really get down to the details, it really isn't that much to work with when you are doing a kitchen, dining room and living room. Matt pulled it off quite well.

Snore. And I'm so tired of them milking Katrina. HGTV donating 50K to two families. Puh-leeze.

The designs were both boring. Absolutely no WoW factor! And what kind of designer doesn't know that you have to prep raw wood before staining? Sheesh! Not even worthy of a vote IMHO. I sure expected more. I hope Top Design has a better crop when it starts in September.

boring, nothing new or interesting

Boring boring boring. Matt's was U-G-L-Y except for the dining romm and in Jen's space, the dining table seemed so small - it only seats 6? Where is everyone going to eat? At the other small table across the room in shifts?
I gotta go with Jen for the win, though I would not watch either of their shows. She's much more natural on camera. Matt seems to have a naturally low-key personality and then puts on this forced, peppy persona when the camera is on him that makes me die a little inside.

I think Matt did a much better job, the kitchen in Jen's apartment was better but the thoer two rooms were much better in Matt's The red chairs tie the room to the rug and the home looked like a place that couldd have kids grow up with style. The dining room was beautiful. The living room in Jen's wouldn't last two minutes in a house with kids, especially if the area has drainage problems at times. Kids bring in lots of dirt and this I know because I have four. It's up to the designer to think about problems solving before the client does, what good does it do if the room only looks good for 15 minutes.