141 replies to this topic

[Happyshooter]

"Designer Genevieve Gorder offers down-to-earth advice to real people who have fallen out of love with their home."

This started today on HGTV. Folks write in with photos of their design problems, Genevieve goes out and fixes them.

There is a lot I can start with, but if you were going to star in the first episode of your own TV show, wouldn't you dress nicely and try to look pretty?

[hendersonrocks]

I just love Genevieve--she was always my favorite designer on Trading Spaces back in the day, and her personality and design style are still completely delightful to me. I enjoyed the show a lot when I saw it today (perfect hangover show!), and I thought she looked cute.

Aside from the phenomenal design of both rooms (that kitchen was to die for), what also impressed me was how fantastic she was working with the kids in the first episode.

Sumik, I think the regular time is Monday evenings.

Edited by hendersonrocks, Jan 1, 2009 @ 8:13 PM.

[Sumik]

Oh, I'm happy that it's good. I meant to watch it and completely forgot the time. Did they announce when it's regularly scheduled time will be?

[xingcat]

Genevieve mentioned, during the Rose Bowl Parade coverage, that her show was going to focus more on the emotional journey of the people changing a room in their homes. I didn't really see that too much in the kitchen episode, but the first episode, with the cute family's great room, seemed to hit the mark.

I wanted to see more of the thought process that went into the choices she made for each room. She seemed to make decisions and then carry them out, rather than give the families options on what they'd like to see.

Her show reminds me a bit of "Divine Design," though she's not quite as good a designer as Candice Olsen. Then again, Candice always seems to have a much bigger budget and more time than any other design show on HGTV, so that may play into it.

[TrippingJ]

Genevieve was my favorite designer on Trading Spaces, so I'm super thrilled she has her own show.

Both makeovers were gorgeous and I think the design trumps anything creepy Bromstand and ugly Kim Myles would do.

As for her comparision to Candace Olsen, I think Candace is more creative but my biggest peeve about Candace is that she only limits herself to renovate only upper-middle class to upper-class peoples houses. I hope Genevieve breaks away from this and decides to a wide spectrum of designs for every budget.

Edited by TrippingJ, Jan 2, 2009 @ 11:34 AM.

[xingcat]

As for her comparision to Candace Olsen, I think Candace is more creative but my biggest peeve about Candace is that she only limits herself to renovate only upper-middle class to upper-class peoples houses.

HGTV has so many shows for people on a budget, I find it refreshing for a reveal-type show (as opposed to "Designer's Challenge," which is just dripping with money) that's a bit more high-end. "Dear Genevieve" appears to be headed in this direction, as well, which I like. I thought her solutions on "Trading Spaces" were terrific, but it's good to see what she can do with a real designer's budget this time around. Also, they show what the homeowners contributed, which is a detail I like.

[Suz at Large]

The positive comments here have encouraged me to look for this show the next time it's on and see for myself.

I've never been Genevieve's biggest fan, but overall she was one of the better designers on Trading Spaces. I recall she did some ditzy stuff in some of the earlier episodes; was she the one who glued spagnum moss to a bedroom wall? She has, thank goodness, IMHO grown since those days.

I'm about over the "decorate on a shoestring" shows which apparently require some godawful artsy-craftsy project in each episode even if not necessary. If Genevieve's really doing real-life design somewhat along the lines of Divine Design, I'm up for it. She definitely has a nice on-screen presence including some class and a sense of humor.

[mjcapri28]

. I recall she did some ditzy stuff in some of the earlier episodes; was she the one who glued spagnum moss to a bedroom wall?

That sounds like something Heidi, I think that was her name, would have done.

[greybear]

You're thinking of Hildi [not Heidi].

[missmaisydaisy]

I recall she did some ditzy stuff in some of the earlier episodes; was she the one who glued spagnum moss to a bedroom wall?

That sounds like something Heidi, I think that was her name, would have done

Genevieve DID do the moss wall - it was in Season 2, I think, for a bedroom near San Diego. It's also the room where she did a really bad job laying large tiles.

Hildi (not Heidi) put hay on a wall in a home near San Francisco - I think that was Season 3.

[Suz at Large]

Genevieve DID do the moss wall - it was in Season 2, I think, for a bedroom near San Diego. It's also the room where she did a really bad job laying large tiles.

Hildi (not Heidi) put hay on a wall in a home near San Francisco - I think that was Season 3.

Thanks, missmaisydaisy. I don't remember the hay wall, but I may have seen it and it just got lost in all Hildy's beyond-the-edge designs.

I know that when I saw that moss go on the bedroom wall in that Genevieve episode, my sinuses throbbed a little. Imagine anyone with any kind of sensitivities or allergies trying to sleep in that room - aaack! And I'm not hyper-allergic or asthmatic, just have some seasonal allergies to some plants.

[addicted_aardvark]

Genevieve DID do the moss wall - it was in Season 2, I think, for a bedroom near San Diego. It's also the room where she did a really bad job laying large tiles.

Ah, yes. The bedroom floor with lots of toe obstacles.

On Trading Spaces, Genevieve did go in for outdoor material themes for awhile (the best, I think, was the Minnesota basement room done with a lot of wood). And her town redo show had some similar missteps. It will be interesting to see if Dear Genevieve show her best side but also a "Genevieve grown up" aspect.

[Stacey Lou]

She has a nice personality I suppose ('kind of looks like a Redgrave, Camelot anyone?), but I felt like she dropped the ball with the staining of the floor. She told them she would give them something dark, and ended up with what I think of as "country oak". The homeowner lady didn't like it, and I don't blame her. There's a yellow tone in it. The homeowner also didn't like seeing all the patterns in the wood. Genevieve told her that is what happens when you are dealing with wood. No, not if she had gone with a darker stain like she mentioned in the first place. And instead of changing it, (because they were operating on the homeowner's money, right?) it was just hard cheese.

[SparksFan59]

Well, I can't forgive her for the mossy wall incident, but this new show is great. I enjoyed the two episodes that I saw. So far not a shred of moss in sight.

[AngelaHunter44]

I always liked Genevieve on TS, especially when she did kitchens. Love her personality too. I forgot to watch her new show, but hope to catch it next time.

Hildi (not Heidi) put hay on a wall in a home near San Francisco

That was the least of her sins. Who could forget the feather wall, and the bathroom walls completely covered in glued-on fake flowers?

Edited by AngelaHunter44, Jan 5, 2009 @ 7:44 PM.

[greybear]

... the bathroom walls completely covered in glued-on fake flowers?

They weren't glued; they were stapled! Just imagine, all those little pieces of metal stuck in the gyprock in a moist environment.

[robroy]

Don't forget when Hildi ordered a metric ton of shredded paper to line the walls of a home office.

I will cut Genevieve some slack because stains are not always consistant. Sometiems they seem to be affected by moisture. And another problem is if you stain a sample with a heavy handed use of stain and hand it off to someone who does a dainty layer of stain and wipes it off. She probably should have either picked an altogether darker stain or made sure it was matchign her test run.

I liked the episode with eighties family room redo but thought giving a gift card to buy a flat screen was a copout since it allowed her to avoid placing it in a room that only allowed for awkward TV placement.

[Suz at Large]

I liked the episode with eighties family room redo but thought giving a gift card to buy a flat screen was a copout since it allowed her to avoid placing it in a room that only allowed for awkward TV placement.

I liked that episode too, robroy. IIRC the budget - homeowner's money - for the makeover was $6000 which is way more realistic than the chump change that Decorating Cents, Design on a Dime, Designed to Sell, etc., have to work with. Do we know if the labor was provided at no cost to the HO by the show and the budget was all for materials and furniture?

Although I did note the apparently obligatory DIY crafts project - spray painting the chandelier. Which at least looked nice when it was finished, probably because it *started* as a chandelier and not a set of bookends or a urinal or a salad bowl.

I liked the way they made the brick fireplace wall go away, and there was a little suspense in my watching the show because I was seeing silk drapery fabric *and* rough-looking wood which I thought wouldn't mesh well. But she pulled off a comfortable and inviting redone room that is definitely not anybody's parents' family room.

I'm often dubious of wall to wall curtains. But short of replacing that chopped-up window with a real picture window or even something larger I think it was a good way to work with that wall of the room which also had the door in it. Interesting to me that on that wall, which literally opens out into a swimming pool area, there was not a set of the ubiquitous sliding glass doors. That's one place where they would make sense both for opening up the view of the pool and for access. Some updated version of a large window-door opening would have been terrific for that room but not within the budget for this redo.

And I agree that the placement of the TV wasn't obvious as I recall the room layout, but I bet the homeowner has worked it in somewhere, even in another room in the house.

[Teague]

I thought the whole point of the drapes was that the HO could mount the TV on the wall to the left of the existing window--then she could open the drapes when she wanted to watch the TV, but draw them when she didn't.

I'm not normally one of those people who feels like it's inherently bad design if you see the TV in a room, but I thought that was a pretty good idea, actually.

[StripedPothos]

As we all saw on Trading Spaces, the lady seems friendly as hell, with a good personality. Would love to have a couple brews and just chit-chat with her.

But, despite her supposed credentials as a designer, I found too many of her concepts and implementation of the concepts, just deplorable. She's out there and on tv, but, that still doesn't mean that she'll get it right for the homeowners.

I think she still has a TS/Heidi mindset: homeowners be dammed!

First shows were tolerable, but, it's already pinging in my head that she is just not that great of a design specialist. I don't actually like many things she does, and, my mind is constantly racing as to what I would do differently. So, not a show I will watch again, as, for me, it's stress inducing; because she still thinks in a TS mod.

[Suz at Large]

I thought the whole point of the drapes was that the HO could mount the TV on the wall to the left of the existing window--then she could open the drapes when she wanted to watch the TV, but draw them when she didn't.

I obviously missed that, Teague, not surprising since I tend to wander off during shows like that.

Which raises a question in my mind: how prudent is it, from a fire hazard perspective, to have electric/electronic devices like TVs, DVRs, etc., located right behind curtains? Those things do heat up, and wires/plugs are involved. And fabrics catch fire - how many of those pretty silks and sheers used for curtains are treated with flame-retardant stuff? Anyway, it's flame-retardant, not flame-proof. Just about anything will burn eventually.

Edited for clarity.

Edited by Suz at Large, Jan 8, 2009 @ 9:39 AM.

[Teague]

I wondered that same thing, Suz--the safety issues of covering a TV with drapery.

My wife and I missed that too, by the way--we had to backup the TiVo to catch it. Genevieve sort of tossed it in in the middle of another sentence--sort of a drive-by explanation. :)

[RedWeatherTiger]

I never watched Trading Spaces, so i don't know Genevieve, but she reminds me so much of the actress who plays Allan's ex-wife Candy on Two and a Half Men. The way she talks....kind of halting or something. It's distracting.

[addicted_aardvark]

I watched last night's wife & "team baseball" and their basement redo. I guess hanging a full wall of draperies to cover mis-matched openings is Genevieve's "thing", since she did it here as well. But the camera didn't spend too much time on that wall.

I felt the beige/white colored semi-formal chairs and chaise were too "upstairs" for a basement family room. And thought it odd that the chaise was faced opposite to the chairs and basically away from the focal point. Or was I hallucinating again?

Also must have missed the final lighting solutions, because I remember Genevieve making the point that you could have a chandelier *and* recessed lighting, but the lighting at the end didn't make an impression on me. What was it?

Oh yeah - and solving the "problem" of a memorabilia collection by moving them from a single location in a bookcase to several collectible autographed baseballs in the fireplace niche and a variety of plastic figurines distributed at locations throughout the rest of the house was rather odd.

OK, I think that's enough of Genevieve for me.

[Teague]

Designers hate collections in general, from what I've seen. They end up forcing collectors to choose a few spotlight items to display, which sort of defeats the purpose of some collections, at least.

I have no doubt that in most cases, once the designers go away, the collections come back out to some degree. The folks I feel sorry for are the people on the cleaning/organization shows (who've let their collections get away from them in some ways, to be fair), because they're often forced to choose a few pieces to keep, and lose the rest of them to garage sales or charity.

[addicted_aardvark]

Designers hate collections in general, from what I've seen. They end up forcing collectors to choose a few spotlight items to display, which sort of defeats the purpose of some collection

Yes, I think it is genetic for designers to hate collections AND televisions.

The thing I didn't get about Gen's solution was this: If Team Mom thinks a cabinet of baseballs and baseball statues overwhelms the family room, why would she think that a limited number of baseball things in the family room PLUS (fewer) baseball things all over the house is better?

[Teague]

Good question, addicted_aardvark. It makes more sense to me to just give a room over to a collection theme than to spread it all over the house. (That's the way I've seen most collectors--including myself--deal with it--one dedicated space, you can enjoy that one thing in one space, and the rest of the house design isn't affected.)

I've always enjoyed the irony of TV designers always talking about how ugly the TV is in a room. Sort of biting the hand that feeds. I get that they're not the most attractive things in a room, but when a designer arranges the living room furniture in a way that makes it awkward to watch TV (when it's the home's main TV watching space, anyway), its just bad design.

[Suz at Large]

And thought it odd that the chaise was faced opposite to the chairs and basically away from the focal point. Or was I hallucinating again?

addicted_aardvark, IIRC the chaise may have been over by the TV, and there was open space between the chaise and the TV in which the guys could play games hooked up to the TV. In the "before" scenes they showed them having to move the sofa and chairs aside in order to be able to do that, so I assumed the placement of the TV with that piece of furniture there to sit on and some space out in front of it, was to accommodate that. It seemed to me they had a conversation area with the sofa and chairs and then next to it that TV area.

OTOH I'm often wrong. :-)

[addicted_aardvark]

Suz at Large - thanks for that explanation about the chaise and the TV. I really wish, on these type of shows, that they'd give us *enough* time at the end to absorb the finished product. After all, it really IS the point of the preceding 18 minutes. I like the way they end Divine Design with a series of still views of before/after over the credits. Here I obviously fixated on the fireplace part of the arrangement. And I don't imagine the HGTV website has photos from each project.

[missmaisydaisy]

Designers hate collections in general, from what I've seen.

I agree, and I can see their point...most collections wind up being so cluttered that you can't even notice the beauty inherent (if it was even there to start with, all dependent on your taste) in the stuff. Usually a few choice pieces show far better, just like a de-cluttered room always is more pleasant (IMO) than one that is filled to the gills and allows you to see what's beautiful.

I like Gen's personality, although I agree that her designs sometimes lack a real design functionality (she has a graphic design degree - which is not to say that every great designer needs a degree in interior design, but the gaps are often more glaring those who are not formally trained, esp. if they've done most of their design on a TV show, like Gen).

I think she still has a TS/Heidi mindset

Her name is Hildi, not Heidi.

Edited by missmaisydaisy, Jan 10, 2009 @ 7:01 PM.