With Kristen and Karen's entries, we arrive at a decisive moment in our biggest contest yet (see last West Side Entries).
Opening our arms to the country we have fielded 37 entries from the east and 28 from the west, including cities such as Austin, Boulder, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle and Cincinnati (to name a few). Through the web, we have reached into a total of 65 homes that have been lovingly worked on. We have been presented with over five dozen amazingly varied, spunky and colorful achievements that range from bedrooms to nurseries to whole studios to living and dining rooms. Not everyone likes orange (though many do) and not everyone had a great camera (though a few did), but the truth is out and it's time for you to finish your voting (Go to the Contest Page with all entries).
Tonight, our five in-house judges are going to determine the top five submissions in the east and the west (10 total) by looking at your voting. Tomorrow we begin the East Coast Color Rumble and the West Coast Color Rumble.
And before the separation begins, thanks to everyone who submitted and congratulations for submitting. Whatever your entry looked like, you're the best for having the gumption to get it out there.
The judging seemed to get brutal in the last week of entries. A lot fewer with good ratings.
who are the "real" judges this time?
I agree...I think everyone has gotten really tired and really jaded or something...I think everyone's rooms are great, personally...
Voter fatigue.
Strange how some entries have so many more votes than others.
agreed..the voting process is so unreliable
Okay, I've just looked at all the entries again. And I've decided not to play my cards so close to the vest anymore and share my thoughts (despite having a room in the competition).
With all due respect to all the entries, I keep coming back to Billy's Grid Wall Bedroom in hopes that it garner more Blue Ribbon votes. I think it's the most visionary of all the entries because it seems so fresh and original.
It doesn't ape one popular decorating style or another. Though the room might benefit from one or two finishing touches and tweaks (as noted on the thread for his entry), it truly is an inspiration because of the singularity of its vision. I can't put my finger on it, but there is something intuitively "right" about its overall feel. It's the only one that inspires me. All the other rooms (mine included) vary from "nice" to "well-done" to "fully realized vision."
I don't know about everyone else, but I've never wanted a room that looked like tear-sheet from a showroom. "Good taste" is overrated in my mind. I like imperfection and stylistic "disconnects." Give me funk, give me character, give me a statement. Give me something I haven't seen before--but make it good.
For me, Billy's room is it. Plus, in my mind, it hits all the marks in terms of satisfying the color parameters of this contest. Is the room "done"? Well... maybe not completely. Is it colorful? Yes--and in a way that is so vastly different from all the other entries.
But, uh yeah. You should still vote for my room! I've been eyeing a floor lamp at CB2 for months now... ;)
SMACKDOWN! BRING IT!
PS to all the armchair copy-editors out there. Can we stop now? Please?
My retinas may never recover. As I said on one of the entry threads I definitely have color fatigue.