Wow, is all I can say. What a rollercoaster this past few weeks have been for me, so many highs and lows its almost too much to absorb at once. First let me start off by thanking all of the people who have supported me throughout this whole thing. Today especially I have been getting slammed with mail, I appreciate it all and keep it coming, I promise when I get a chance I will get back to all of you.
So on to the episode, this challenge was a rather strange one for me. It starts with all 5 of us working in the same kitchen on the same design. Hold on a second, I thought this was a competition........who are we competing against if we work on the same room? At the very least I would have liked to have gotten the chance to show off my style by at least presenting a design board to the family. I'm very pround of my design boards and would have no problem showing them off on the show. But sometimes you dont always get what you want.
Now for the challenge Tracee was the team leader, I know they make it look like we are complete asses to her by just walking away while she was talking. However, what they arent showing is that after two hours of trying to make a design plan she wasnt allowing us to make any concrete decisions. She seem to have a gift of running in circles. So we slowly one by one started demo on the room, and told her its too late to make a group decision at this point. She was team leader so make the final decision and get to work.
The rest of the day I had so much fun tearing everything down and building back up. What can I say? Demo is the most fun part of construction. The rest of the day was just chaos, with drywall going up.... cabinet doors coming down and a whole lotta mess in between.
Coming up on the second day, which was the day I got to sit around and wait for my backsplash to come. What HGTV didnt show is that we DID have a blacksplash at the house already. It was this cool expensive green glass tile which would have added a great pop of color in the all white kitchen. However, out of respect for the leader I didnt put it up because she didnt like it. So out of good faith I waited for her to return with an alternative backsplash in time for me to install it. Obviously that never happened, and by the time we realized she wasnt coming back, it was too late to even start tiling with anything.
Excluding the backsplash, I was really happy that we just finished the kitchen, which is rather weird now that I think about it. Shouldnt we be more excited about how the design turned out than "just finishing it". This challenge definaly was more of a mini "Flip this House" than any sort of design show. Given only 24 hours to do this, we had no other option but to choose the quick & simple fixes. Vern actually stated to us that adding design elements wouldnt have taken any extra time, and I have to disagree with that. Color? Sure that wouldnt have taken any time to have picked a different color for cabinets and walls. But To me that isnt true design, true design is about more than just painting over things, its about changing structure & layouts. Its about changing the cabinets completely instead of just painting them. Its about real window treatments, not just hanging napkins. All of that which would have added lots of time that we didnt have. The next kitchen I do, I will be proud of its design and not "just finishing" thats for sure.
What next? HOSTING! LoL Yeah, I knew I wasnt very good. In fact I knew going into this competition that was going to be my weakness. The ironic part is that this whole experience has completely changed that. After coming home and doing newspaper interviews, and morning shows, and live interviews like crazy for the past 2 months. The camera doesnt scare me at all anymore! I feel very comfortable and confident now, sure I probably still have a few kinks to work out, but for me it feels like night and day. I owe a lot of that thanks toTrish and Jen's coaching back at the design star house, those are some really cool girls.
Trish & I Working on Cabinets
I'm sure you all know by now that Trish turned out to be my very best friend. She is such a great person, which is obviously why I backed her up when Tracee tried to bring up that whole ring situation in front of the judges. Very out of line if you ask me, the poor girl just had her wedding ring cut off, and HGTV forced her to do it on camera in the middle of the competition. I think that would be enough trama for her in one day, but Tracee obviously likes to poke open wounds. So that is why I backed up Trish in front of the judges. To those people that think I hate Tracee, I dont. Everything I've said was always to her face. Im not a gossip person, I just dont take shit from anyone and will tell someone to their face when they cross that line.
Same thing with Matt, in the green room I felt as if he were attempting to pin the missing backsplash on me. So I stood up for myself, and made sure he knew the backsplash would have been done if the tile had arrived on time. I still like Matt and think he is an extemely talented individual, its just sometime people confuse me saying whats on my mind as being mean. I'm just a very straight forward person.
So anyways this week, Tracee got the boot. Then so did I. I knew it was coming, so there was no shock at all. The one thing that just frustrated me most is that I never got to do a high end modern room that I was really really proud of. On the other end of the spectrum, I learned TONS, even styles I wouldnt have even attempted otherwise. Thanks to that, I feel like I have grown a lot as a designer and believe this to be one of the best experience of my life. While many people try to take you down because they see you in the spot light. There are a million others lifting you back up and showing their full support. Those are the people who keep me doing this job, and loving every second of it!
Thanks again!
Mikey V
