Design Star Winner

Yesterday I finally had the opportunity to watch the finale of  season 6 of HGTV's Design Star.

The two finalists were Meg and Karl.  I thought it would be appropriate to highlight their design journey on the show.

The first individual challenge of the season was the favored white box challenge.  It's where each contestant started off with the same plain white space and had a certain budget and period of time to finish a design that really reflected their abilities and design style.

Karl designed a space that to me seemed slightly dated with his color choices and graphic design.  I did like the way he painted the furniture in different sections to correspond with the floor colors.  I loved the chandelier.  I thought it was very creative.  Overall I thought that he did a good job.

If the white box challenge is supposed to reflect a designer's ability, creativity and style then what does this room say about Meg?  I think I remember one of the Design Star judges actually describing this room as "creepy."  Meg's table fell over just as the time ran out so that was unfortunate.  There was nothing about this room that I liked.  Not the colors, nor the layout, nor any of the individual elements.  She tried to do some type of shadow effect behind the furniture pieces but I didn't think it was successful.  Her engaging personality pulled her through this challenge as her room was an absolute disaster.

Another individual design challenge that the contestants faced was redecorating a whole house.  Each designer was assigned their own area.  Karl redesigned the master bedroom into a calming retreat.  I liked his lighting choices and the moulding under the windows.  I believe that Karl actually won this challenge with his design.

Meg was given the opportunity to decorate the entryway and upstairs loft area.  Now to be fair to Meg, a bedroom is one of the easiest rooms to decorate while an entryway can be more of a challenge.  She hung an interesting grouping of lanterns on the wall but unfortunately it was severely crooked.  She had the opportunity to really make this room stand out but it really fell short.  The whole area looked like an afterthought.

I don't think any of the elements in the space related to another.  It was more of a hodge podge.

Here was Meg's design of the loft area.  (Now, if these pictures so far were in her design portfolio, would you hire her to design a space for you?)  Meg ended up in the bottom two this week but was not sent home.

Meg also did some designing that the judges loved in some other challenges.  In those two cases, she was working with other designers.  In this post I just want to showcase the work that each did individually.

Four contestants were left at this point and were each given an apartment living area to design and a tiny segment on the Nate Berkus Show.

To be honest, I wasn't really too impressed with any of the four designs.  We were not told what the limitations were for the designers with materials and resources so that may have been an issue for all of them.

The judges really liked Karl's tall, narrow bookcases.

Meg put up widely spaced planks of wood and painted them yellow--much to the delight of the judges.  I must have missed something because I really didn't like it.

Karl, who had problems in the past in front of the camera ended up doing a good job and received a genuine "oooooh!" from the studio audience at the Nate Berkus Show.

Meg was a complete natural in front of the camera and knew how to play up the audience.  It was no surprise when she won this challenge.

One of the last design challenges that the contestants faced was designing a tiny house.  Karl's space felt a little crowded with his layout but he more than made up for it with all the storage issues he addressed.

Meg's layout was much more open but she provided very little storage.  I didn't care for her decorating at all but the judges loved it and declared her the winner of this challenge.

The final challenge that Karl and Meg faced was designing a living area for real clients while filming a "pilot" for their future t.v. shows.  (Should they win.)   Karl's space was a little more difficult to work with as he tried to marry the two design requests of his clients.  The husband wanted a more gritty New York graphic design while the wife was set on a room with Tuscan colors and decor.  Graphic Tuscan?

The room was nice but I didn't see a single Tuscan element anywhere.  There was only one attempt of a gritty graphic on the armoire.  He really could have pulled more graphic art into the room.  It would have made it much more interesting.  I liked the high moulding shelf around the room but didn't really understand the point of throwing clusters of little picture frames up there.  You couldn't really see the photos and it just looked as though he ran out of time.

Cue the surprised clients.  They acted as though they liked it, of course.  And really, it is all about making the clients happy so on that front Karl's room was successful.

Meg had a little easier time with her clients' request of Tiffany blue, warm and with leather.   I was slightly  disappointed with Meg's room.  It seemed as though so much time was put into filming her pilot show that the actual design took a back seat.  I didn't really understand her attempt at a gallery wall behind the buffet either. 

I tried to keep in mind that the contestants were working with limited resources and time.  I still think that the room showed a lack of creativity.  The clients seemed to like it (even though there was no Tiffany blue) and so did the judges--so what do I know?

And the obvious winner is Meg?  She was shaky with her design concepts but was definitely on top when it came to being in front of the camera.  (At least in the judges' eyes.)  Good luck with your new show, Meg!

And as for Karl....

So Design Star is over for the season.  No more until next year.  The only one I'm going to miss is show mentor and Design Star season 1 winner, David Bromstad.