Guest blogger Karen Shih files her last Top Design recap. Thanks for writing, Karen!

It's the season finale! After 10 weeks, it has come down to Nathan (not surprising), Preston (kind of surprising, given his start) and Ondine (where did she come from?!).

As we know from last week, their final challenge is to finish the home they started last week. They jump right in, going shopping, figuring out wallpaper and painting immediately.

Nathan says he's trying to make a hip, young and good-looking home. Preston, as usual, wants sleek and modern with a traditional twist. Ondine is going for … Danish modern chic? I don’t know what Danish style is, but OK.

Continue reading "'Top Design' season finale: And the winner is ..." »

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Catch up on Top Design with guest blogger Karen Shih:

This week, the challenge is to design one room of a three-bedroom home to persuade the judges to let them finish the home, which will be the final challenge. The designers get to pick whichever room they want, and they get 90 minutes to pick out colors and wallpaper. The contestants have the rest of the afternoon to shop.

Happy Birthday to Nathan! They're partaying it up (with hard liquor, Eddie adds), but Preston is kind of being emo in his own room, talking about how his family has a history of alcoholism. He goes to sleep, leaving a heavily intoxicated Nathan to prance around in tights and a wig as the "host" of Top Design.

Continue reading "'Top Design': Eddie and his ego head home" »

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Guest blogger Karen Shih gets us up to date on Top Design:

This week, the designers have to create a room of their choice around a Swarovski chandelier. Eddie, who has immunity after a good Pop Design, gets to choose the order in which everyone picks chandeliers.

He goes first, naturally, and chooses the "Golden Teak Glitterbox,: which is a long, horizontally oriented, rectangular chandelier. Andrea goes second and picks the "Light Peridot Glitterbox," which is like Eddie's, but green and hanging down, long-ways.

Nathan chooses the "Ice Branch," which really does look like the trees in my backyard that one year after that ice storm. Ondine picks the "Light Sock," which looks like just one large crystal at the bottom of a fishnet.

Preston is left with this pear-shaped, purply-gray ugliness. He's proven to be fairly brilliant though, so it probably won't hold him back.

Continue reading "'Top Design': One contestant chooses to go" »

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Karen Shih is still watching Top Design even though Wisit is gone. Here is her recap:

Our first week without Wisit … ah, sad times.

Today's challenge looks ahead: The designers have to create the room of the future, for the year 2108. They have raw, three-wall spaces, and they’ll have carpenters to help. It's an individual challenge (yay!), and they get $7,000 and two-and-a-half days to work.

Eddie is going for a cloning center lobby, because he wants to be able to pick beeyootiful children. No uggos for him, apparently.

Andrea wants a pod house that can be moved … that flies? A super-girly, pink room, she says, if it's the last room she does in the competition. Pessimistic mood, optimistic color.

Ondine wants a fireplace, just like Eddie. I don't get it. What are we burning for fuel in 2108? And what is a cooling fireplace?

Continue reading "'Top Design': Here's your future" »

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Guest blogger Karen Shih recaps the latest episode of Top Design:

I fell asleep during the initial airing of this week's episode, so I'm watching it at 1 a.m. for the rerun. If this blog sounds a little incoherent, well, there you go.

This week, Top Design goes green! The intro shows the designers getting ready, and Eddie's getting a little bitter and maybe a little cocky. He hates that Nathan is winning and he's not, but he's all, I work for Martha Stewart, and Martha only hires the best.

So booyah, essentially.

Continue reading "'Top Design': the green challenge" »

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Guest blogger Karen Shih is back and excited that, finally, the designers are NOT working in teams on Top Design:

Finally, an individual challenge! But it's not designing a room … it's a design triathlon, and the winner of each part gets immunity. Don't they seem to just throw immunity around a lot here? They never really do that on the other Bravo elimination shows.

First up, chairs. The designers need to make one-of-a-kind chairs in two hours. India judges each section with a different judge, and Kelly, wearing some strange origamilike creation with gigantic sleeves, is first.

They don’t like Natalie's weirdly purple and patterned chair. It's a "remnant from a Vegas hotel," says Kelly.

They don’t like Theresa's green and blue patterned chair either, because they said all she did was put fabric on it, and she didn’t do that well.

Continue reading "'Top Design': triathlon" »

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Guest blogger Karen Shih fills us in on Top Design:

I'm kind of sick this week and being an old lady, going to bed early and drinking hot chocolate even though it's barely the start of fall … so it's going to be a shorter recap.

So, it's bachelor pad week, and they're in teams AGAIN. Why? Why can't we ever see them do anything by themselves? Once! Just once! And making a picture frame doesn't count!

Ughghgh.

Continue reading "'Top Design': See ya, Shazia" »

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Karen Shih recaps another episode of Top Design featuring some special guests:

It's Project Runway week! With designers from back when PR was good! I mean, not that I don’t love Leanne, but the overall quality has just gone down this season … ugh. (Editor's note: Seriously, she's got that right!)

Anyway, the designers are hoping for an individual challenge this time, as am I, because it would be great to see what they bring to a room without all the drama of having to work with others.

But alas, in teams of two, they're creating window displays for an exclusive boutique featuring fashions by our favorite designers: Santino, Sweet P, Daniel, Andrae and Jeffrey (who now looks like a 1970s porn star).

Continue reading "'Top Design': Kerry cut in 'Project Runway' challenge" »

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Here is our guest blogger Karen Shih and her recap of Top Design. (Better late than never! I keep having trouble logging into the blogging software at home.):

It's bomb shelter week!

Andrea keeps talking about not wanting to be associated with Rick Schroder (if you didn't mention it honey, nobody would ever know), Wisit continues his fabulousity and Robert is as bitchy and contentious as ever.

In addition, this week our designers get to showcase their knowledge of history. How would Americans end up in bomb shelters? Natalie speculates. Well, the Chinese would build Transformers, which would be great vengeance for … Hiroshima.

Yeah.

Continue reading "'Top Design': Gimme (bomb) shelter" »

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Guest blogger Karen Shih, a Baltimore Sun summer intern, is covering the second season of Bravo's Top Design. (I heard it's supposed to be a bit more flashy this time around.):

I confess that I know absolutely nothing about design, and the most decorating I've done is in my own rooms wherever I'm living, which has been a lot of places in the past couple of years (and it may have involved a questionable decision to paint my room bright green while I was in high school). But I'm not here to be an expert – that's what the judges are for – just to provide some recaps. And we're off!

We start with India Hicks, regal and somewhat severe with her deep voice and British accent, introducing us to the cast of 13, who is here to compete for $100,000. I'm terrible at names, so I'll give you the first names as I caught them during the intros. It takes a couple episodes for us to really get to know them, anyway ...

Continue reading "'Top Design' Season 2 debuts" »

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