Texas: Ghostbridge

Shout-out to thelittleblueworm.

MPDP appears in jeans and a turquoise Johnny collar t-shirt and says they're in San Antonio. She informs us that Texas (in Spanish) means "friend." I wonder what the Spanish word is for "neighbourly lawsuit." We see Hildi, Vern, and Ty hanging out at some zoo or something, playing with birds. One bird sits on Ty's shoulder and chews his collar.

Homeowners: Dana and Lynette, schoolteachers. Neighbours are Carlos and Laura. They picnic under a tree. Dana wants her room to continue to be a homey, family place. The room is a basic, featureless white box with beige carpeting, lots of plaid furniture, mostly in blue and white, with orangey-toned knotty pine furniture (coffee table, entertainment unit, side tables). The windows have Venetian blinds on them, and there are lots of countryish accents around the room: quilts and floral chintz pillows, etc. Lynette says Dana's always had a country theme in there, and now wants something different. Dana is fine with the couches being reupholstered or slipcovered, but just doesn't want them painted. Lynette says there's a chair in the family room that everyone falls in love with when they sit in it; it's a pink, grey, and white plaid with a matching ottoman. It's butt-ugly, but I believe it's comfortable. Lynette says they can slipcover it or change the colour of it, but not the design or the feel of it: "It needs to stay the same." Yeah, good luck with that. For those of you new to the show: this is when you know she's getting Hildi. Dana wants it to be a "happy but warm" space. She just doesn't know how to pull that together.

Carlos and Laura's family room has beige walls, a greige carpet, and a white ceiling. As in Dana's room, this one is open to the kitchen. The upholstered furniture is a three-piece set -- couch, love seat, and side chair with matching ottoman -- in a pale blue and white stripe with rolled arms. It's accented with yellow pillows that go with precisely nothing. There's a small, light blue Oriental area rug under the coffee table. The three narrow windows have white blinds on them. The requisite godawful ceiling fan in dark wood and brass presides over the room. The wooden furniture is all a dark reddish-brown, and their prized possession in this room is a three-piece entertainment unit with open shelves on each end and an armoire-style central unit. It's not bad-looking as those things go. It's Carlos's favourite thing, and he doesn't want it painted or touched in any way. Laura wants something done to the couches, and says they're really ugly. Indeed they are. Then we see a shot of the love seat, as Laura says it's broken and needs to be thrown out: I think there's a yellow throw over the back of it, but at first I thought all the fabric had been removed from the back and it was just the stuffing sticking out there! It's that colour yellow. I was all embarrassed for them. Laura says she'd like to see some "happy, bold, elegant colours." Carlos would like a different colour on the walls. Laura doesn't think she would like wallpaper. Her favourite colour is red, and she'd like to see that incorporated into the room. You lucky thing, you. You've got Vern! You don't have to twist his arm to get him to use red.

Key swap: nothing much of note, other than that MPDP insists it's going to be "wild," "exciting," and "bizarre." She just knows it. Whatever.

Dana and Lynette seem ultra-jazzed about working with Vern, and who can blame them? He teases them, asking them to get a little more excited. They move along to the "dis this room" segment; they agree they don't love the room. Lynette would like to see some red in the room because Laura's an energetic, "red" person. Vern plans to get rid of the tired seating and work with the nice things in the room. He's going to inject some colour. He's going to put up wallpaper on one focus wall (the one behind the entertainment unit). Wow; if that's not a first for this show, it must be close to it. I can't wait to see the wallpaper Vern would pick. Anyone who's read more than a couple of recaps of mine knows that I generally hate wallpaper, with the exception of William Morris and other, even more insanely expensive stuff. There's going to be a new rug and new furniture. They're also going to do a folding screen. They unload the room.

Carlos and Laura find Hildi draping a silky scarf over a coffee table: it's a print in bright yellow, pink, purple, aqua, orange, black, white and who knows what else. It's sort of what you'd get if someone with Frank's colour sense had the design talent to work for Herms. Laura asks what she's doing; Hildi says she's trying to figure the room out: "I'm all plaid-ed and flower-ed out!" She's trying to bring in some brightness. Laura looks as the scarf and says she thinks that's really bright. Hildi say she wants to bring in a lot of colour, and that they have a lot of carpentry, painting, and sewing. They unload the room.

Vern reveals his paint: the first is a kind of coffee-with-lots-of-cream colour, which he acknowledges is a lot like what's on the walls, but darker. He then reveals a can of deep red paint; his team hoots in approval. Dana paints a bit of the light brown on the wall.

Hildi's got a plastic crate full of 12" vinyl records and says that it's going to be a fun room, as she starts pulling out LPs. Laura squawks, wondering what they're going to do with these, as Hildi piles them all over the floor. Hildi grabs one and explains that they're going to line the longest wall with albums. She gets up and screws one into the wall. She announces: "Screw it in! Bring 'em on!" Ah, Hildi. Never happier than when she's fastening crap to walls, unless she's destroying things the homeowner values. Luckily, in this episode she doesn't have to choose! She can have it all! The bumper to the commercial is Vern and Hildi pushing Ty around on a kiddie car.

On the way back into the show, we get to see one of the two commercials for the upcoming Las Vegas "live reveal!" show -- the spot with Doug in a tacky tux; Hildi in a hideous orange and white striped sequined dress; Amy Wynn in a tacky outfit (featuring flared pants and a baby-doll style top -- the hell?), and too much makeup; and MPDP in a long red sequined dress with black boa. Between this and the commercial featuring MPDP as a Vegas showgirl singing and dancing, the show is going to have to be pretty good to even live up to, never mind surpass, the promos.

Vern reveals his wallpaper . Now there's a phrase I didn't expect to be typing, sort of like "Frank shows us the gorgeous fabric he picked out" or "Kia's design is practical, tasteful, and rich-looking" or "Laurie paints the walls and ceiling black" or "Edward picks up the sledgehammer and destroys the Stickley sideboard so he can use the wood to make a clever magazine holder." The wallpaper is a thin wood veneer on paper backing, with inlaid floral marquetry. The background of the paper has large blocks in two just slightly different tones, and the floral pattern on each side is in the other tone, creating a rich and lustrous look. The effect is much like what you'd get if you made damask out of wood veneer. It's gorgeous, one of the most interesting and beautiful things Vern's ever picked out. Dana seems to approve.

Laura hands records to Hildi as she says she never could have imagined doing this with old albums. Hildi says that the scarf has some circles in it. As if it naturally follows that you'd then think of fastening records to the wall. Hildi says that some of the LPs are scratched, and that they'll try not to use those unless they have to.

MPDP wants know how many walls Vern's putting the paper on. Vern says just one, because of time and budget. Dana asks if they have to prepare the wall; Vern says they do. Dana's concerned about the orange peel texture on the wall. They need to put a primer on it first.

Hildi explains that they're just lining one wall with the albums; the other four walls are going to be four other colours. What the Frank? I'm flashing back to the "London: Garden Flat" episode. Did she get a bitchin' deal on Easter egg-coloured paint or something? Laura and Carlos exclaim over that. Hildi: "She wanted colour, she's getting colour!"

Vern pours out the primer as he tells his team members they can paint while he's priming. MPDP remarks on the thickness of the primer.

Carlos, much to Hildi's dumsquizzlement, is organizing the records by musical genre. Dude, you've only got two days. Hildi says there's no time for that. Carlos asks what they're doing about the ceiling fan. Hildi says, "It's G-O-N-E." Hildi wants him to install a track light she bought, which will allow them to aim the lights at the different-coloured walls. Carlos thinks that will look nice.

Dana and Lynette paint while MPDP and Vern prime. MPDP takes a shot at Vern's height, saying she'll do the high part of the wall. Vern laughs and Dana warns her, "Hey...that's my Vern you're talking about. You be nice." Vern threatens to prime MPDP.

Hildi tells Ty -- who's wearing a t-shirt featuring a drawing of a somewhat disturbed-looking beaver (patron animal of carpenters, I guess?) -- that she doesn't have drawings because she kind of had one idea and Ty apparently suggested something else. Hildi seems to like his idea. They yatter about whether it's an armoire or an entertainment unit; Ty describes his idea, which is to make a long, low storage unit for the TV and stereo equipment. Basically, they're going to be rectangular boxes on a low platform that will go against the record wall. Ty wants to cover the boxes with pegboard and paint it bright colours, and hide the speakers inside. Don't know how good that'll sound. Hildi hopes she has enough paint for all this since she only bought a quart of each colour for the walls. That seems like it's cutting it pretty close. Ty's not sure if he can get the three tabletops she wants ready for today, but Hildi says she can probably paint those first thing in the morning.

Money shot: Vern removes the ceiling fan. His team cheers. Vern says he's never heard that for the money shot before. Only he doesn't call it a "money shot" 'cause he's way too classy for that.

Hildi reveals her paint: a kind of light daffodil yellow, turquoise (which she keeps calling teal, which it so isn't), coral/orange, and a light Barney purple. Yucko. The purple is not the purple that's in the scarf at all; it's a much redder and more obnoxious shade of purple. Hildi paints samples of each colour on the wall it's supposed to go on. When she paints the coral sample, she draws an orange and paints a smiley face inside it. "Happy wall!" she declares. Hildi tells Laura and Carlos to trust her that it's all going to tie in with the centre, which will be the coffee table featuring the scarf.

Vern and Lynette start measuring to cut the wallpaper. Lynette clarifies that she loves wallpaper but is concerned about Laura liking it. Lynette mentions that this paper is more like wood than like regular wallpaper; Vern emphasizes that it is actually wood veneer, laminated to paper.

Carlos says that the paint colours are pretty, but that he doesn't know whether he would like them in his house. I smirk to myself at the thought of Vern ever using colours like these. Carlos says that Dana's different from them, and that this is exactly what she needs. Laura opines that Dana's "really hip," and so are these colours. Yeah, that didn't feel too staged. ["And, as my sister and I opined, no one who wears her tapered jeans that high on her torso, in the year 2002, is at all 'hip.'" -- Wing Chun]

Vern and Lynette slap paste on the back of the first section of wallpaper. She frets about time, but Vern reassures her, saying that letting the wallpaper dry once it's up will be the most time-consuming aspect. Lynette wonders if they have to hold it in place. Vern laughs, saying, "Yes...for thirty-six hours!" Seriously, what does Lynette think the paste is for?

Carlos thinks that whatever they do to the walls in his house, he'll like it. Or more accurately, he tells Laura, "As long as you like it, I'll like it." My husband nods a little too sympathetically. I remind him that I always solicit his opinion, and never choose anything he doesn't like. He points out that I just care so much more than he does. Well...I can't argue with that. Laura says that the only thing she doesn't want them to do is put up wallpaper. We get to hear about this numerous times in the episode. You know, to try to play up the drama of the reveal.

Vern and his team affix the first section of the wallpaper.

Carlos hopes that if they do paint his walls, they'll be solid colours. Paint and talk, man, paint and talk. Don't just stand there holding your brush and musing. He doesn't think he would like checkerboard or anything of that sort. Laura thinks that as long as it's nice and works well together, she doesn't think she'll mind anything. Do tell. Oh, except for wallpaper. She finally realizes that she should stop talking about wallpaper, since she could walk in there and find just that. And she tells us again that she doesn't want it.

Dana comments that Vern's perfectionism is a good match for her and Lynette. Vern calls the three of them the "obsessive-compulsive disorder triplets." One of them says she's not that bad. Vern and the other one beg to differ. On the bumper to the commercial, Ty interacts with a couple more birds. The birds find that they're not getting quite enough intellectual stimulation from Ty, but they humour him for the cameras.

On the bumper back into the show, Vern pretends to lick some wallpaper paste off a brush. Hildi and Laura start working on the slipcovers; Hildi says that the plaid is starting to make her cross-eyed, and she's really ready to get rid of it. She shows Laura the fabric for the curtains, which will be made in the turquoise colour (which she calls "teal" again), and white. She pulls out some daffodil and coral fabric and says the sofas will each be in one of those colours. Then she says the small one will be coral. Then she pulls out some Barney purple and says the large one will be purple. She picks up the yellow and muses, saying it will be used on a little "baby ottoman" or for the bar stools: "As I sew, I'll create." According to articles about the show, the fabric is linen, which has to be one of the most impractical choices I can think of for a slipcover. Most linen wrinkles if you so much as glance in its general direction. Sigh.

Vern discusses carpentry projects with Ty. Vern wants a folding screen with four MDF panels. He's going to gold-leaf them so he needs them fairly soon.

Hildi wonders if Laura's ever watched the slipcovering process on the show, as they spread the coral fabric over the love seat. Laura has. Hildi says that she thinks slipcovering the furniture was one of the main requests this homeowner had. Hildi says, "The Slipcover Queen came to the rescue." You can totally see the strong plaid pattern through the coral fabric. It's Visible Plaid Line (tm thelittleblueworm)! How mortifying.

Vern also wants a square coffee table made out of plywood, featuring a square recess in the middle. Ty: "I love recess. That was my favourite part about school." Big surprise. Vern mentions that he's working with two teachers, adding for Ty's benefit that this is a different kind of recess, and they both crack up laughing. Vern says something about sinking in a mirror, I guess in the recess. Ty wonders if that's all Vern wants -- a screen and a coffee table. Vern says it is. ["I ask my sister, 'So, do you think that, even with those two extremely simple jobs, Ty will still mess up something of Vern's?' But since we've watched the show before, we both know the answer." -- Wing Chun] Ty wants to know where Vern's spending all his money. Vern starts to talk about the upholstered furniture as Ty interjects, "On the gold leaf, no doubt!" Vern takes his leave and Ty glances at the drawings and then tosses them dismissively in the back of the truck. ["Fucking Ty." -- Wing Chun]

Laura says that the slipcovering is taking longer than she expected. Hildi acknowledges how difficult it is. It looks really freaking tedious. I have a couch in my office that desperately needs recovering, but every time I see them working on pinning slipcovers on this show, I resolve to save the money to have it properly re-upholstered. Hildi also adds that it's not fun: "Luckily, we're painting the other furniture." Painting what other furniture?

Vern and Lynette apply the last section of wallpaper as MPDP interrogates him as to what work remains to be done. MPDP tells them that they're actually okay on time, and explains to Lynette, "It's my job to make you concerned. I need to keep you in a state of fury, so you never let up." I'm not sure she actually says "fury," but I can't make out what she actually does say there, and it sounds like "fury."

Ty and Carlos work on the boxes for the entertainment unit.

Man, the sound in this scene with Hildi and Laura slipcovering is really muddled. Hildi says something that sounds like "blocks of colour" and "blocks of surprise" and "circles of sound." I guess she's free-associating about her design. Laura says it's bright and happy. Hildi agrees it will be a happy design if they ever finish the slipcovers.

Vern, Dana, and Lynette prime the screen panels and paint the coffee table red. He says the panels will be painted red, too, before they apply the gold leaf.

Carlos fires nails into a box; Ty tells him to hustle it along. I think Carlos may be too laid-back for this show.

Laura irons turquoise fabric as Hildi sews. Laura asks Hildi where she got the fabric; it's from New York. The scarf is from Paris. Laura says it would have been faster to buy slipcovers. Hildi agrees, but says, "I'm proud of these slipcovers because I made them with my ten little fingers."

Vern tries to elicit from Dana any concerns she has about what's going on at her place. Dana says she's focused on this room, because she can't do anything about her room anyway.

Ty and Carlos bring in the platform for the entertainment unit. Now watch Hildi; it's like putting a plate of food in front of a starving animal. She jumps on the thing before Ty's quite put his end down, and while she's not exactly a pre-surgery Carnie Wilson, the guy's back probably didn't need that. Hildi skips down the length of it, asking, "Can I dance on it?" Well, is there anything anyone could say that would stop you? She notices Ty complaining about his back, and prances over to him, grabs him around the neck, and gets him to clomp along the thing with her. He sarcastically says, "Yeah, let's all destroy it!" Hildi dances with glee. Ty jumps on it in the manner of a four-year-old in a mud puddle. Honestly, I don't think I'll ever understand Hildi's need to jump/dance/stand/pose/drape oneself all over the carpentry projects.

Vern and his team spread out a dropcloth with MPDP's help. He tells them that their homework is to get an additional coat of paint on the coffee table and screen. MPDP pouts, "Paint, not stain." Vern tells her to "adjust." He says that if they have the time, it would be great if they could hinge the panels together. And then that's it. Whoa. That's light. I don't know if you can really say you've really "worked with Vern" unless you've stayed up all night to finish the room. MPDP wonders whether Vern's leaving; he is, and for once I think I believe him. MPDP squeals, "Dinner? You never get dinner on Day One!" She holds out her hand, he takes it and twirls her, and they exit. As they leave, Vern puts his hand on the small of her back to usher her out, but misses slightly and comes closer to her ass. He quickly moves his hand where he obviously meant it to go, though I know some posters in our forums totally thought be was grabbing her ass. Don't be talking that kind of trash about Vern, now. (Now, if that had been Doug...) ["I have a feeling MPDP's ticket's no good on Doug's train." -- Wing Chun]

Hildi says her team's only homework is to prime and paint the entertainment unit, in whichever colours they can based on the paint left. The base is to be painted black. She takes Ty's arm and drags him out with her.

Day Two. Vern's team has got the screen hinged, although they had to work to fix the panels, since they weren't all the same size. Two were wrong. How hard is it to cut four pieces of MDF more or less the same size and rectangular shape? ["And yet I saw it coming. And it's not like I'm Kreskin over here." -- Wing Chun] Anyway, Vern says it looks good and that they handled it well. From the way it's folded up, it's hard to tell whether they recut/sanded the panels or just arranged them cleverly or what. Dana and Lynette say they improvised: "We're teachers -- what do you expect?"

Hildi comes in with an armload of flowers. In this shot, you can see the yellow and turquoise walls, an orange unit and a purple unit, and the record wall. Frink says, "Holy Romper Room, Batman." Hildi says it looks beautiful and asks if they got all their homework done. They did. They claim to have stayed up all night, but Hildi's not fooled. She says they did a great job yesterday, but that they still have more carpentry, more sewing, and more painting to do. Laura worries about whether they're going to finish. Hildi says they're on schedule, and goes to put the flowers in water.

Vern says they still have to apply the gold leaf to the panels and coffee table, get the curtains up, install the light fixture, and bring in the rug and furniture.

Hildi and Carlos are pinning daffodil yellow fabric on the bar stools. And it looks like hell. I don't know why people think that it looks good to slipcover furniture that's mostly wood and has little or no upholstery on it to begin with; it almost never does. Especially with something like these bar stools; it's never going to stay on there straight, nor is it a very practical choice for a casual eating area. Nor is it an even remotely necessary or worthwhile project in this room. Hildi complains about all the slipcovers she's had to make for this episode. Well, you could have dumped these bar stool slipcovers and been better off for it in many ways. Carlos calls her the "Slipcover Queen."

Vern shows Dana the fabric they're going to use to cover the chair, which I see now is not a chair and ottoman but a "chaise lounge." We already went over this in the last recap, so I'm not rehashing it here. The fabric is a dark reddish colour with what looks like a nubby texture in a grid pattern. He also shows her a "chair and a half" he's purchased for the room; the chair comes with a ready-made slipcover in a medium brown. Vern's also got a new sofabed in the same style and same colour slipcover in a velvet fabric. Good God. There is no designer on this show who consistently wrings more out of $1000 than Vern. Dana sits in the chair and a half and sighs at the comfort.

Hildi and MPDP are in the bedroom with the scarf spread out on the bed. Hildi's explaining what she wants MPDP to do, which seems to be to paint designs on a black folding screen. Hildi wants MPDP to leave her mark on the room; MPDP cheerfully complains that she thought they were going to do it together. Hildi says she's going to help MPDP. She wants MPDP just to paint whatever she feels like based on how the scarf inspires her, and Hildi will come along afterward and finish it off.

Vern shows his team the pillow covers, which are silk and velvet. They have a wide red border with a rectangular inset of a richly patterned gold and red fabric. Dana and Lynette admire them. He shows them the red cotton fabric from which the drapes will be made, and says they'll be added a velvet trim to it on each side. Dana says that the curtains will help keep some of the sun out.

MPDP paints a long swirly flourish on the first panel. Hildi says she doesn't know what it is, but it's perfect. Hildi tells her to move on to the panel and try to do another one more or less the same. The bumper to the commercial is Dana putting her hands on Vern's arm and then hugging and kissing him.

Vern elicits more information from Dana about what she wants to see in her place. She reiterates that she would like to see the sofas slipcovered but not painted.

Cut, of course, to Hildi standing outside with a paint sprayer in her hand, and Granny's beloved chair up on sawhorses. Carlos and Laura come out and make horrified sounds: "Oh my, God, no!" Laura says that Dana said not to paint the chair. Hildi says Dana said not to paint the sofas. She starts spraypainting the chair black. Laura continues arguing with Hildi, telling her Dana said not to "ruin the chair." Oh... "ruin," eh? Now it gets subjective. As if Hildi's going to agree with your definition of "ruin." Laura tells her it's Dana's grandmother's chair. Hildi stops painting for a moment and says, "It's her grandmother's chair? Well, it still is." She goes back to painting. Hildi says Dana said not to paint the sofas. That must have been like waving a red cape in front of a bull. Laura keeps going on and on about not ruining the chair as it gets blacker and paintier. Hildi says Dana should have moved the chair out the room. Not that that's ever stopped designers from grabbing stuff from other rooms. But I think she means that Dana should have put it on the "don't touch" list, which she obviously didn't. I'm sure that, by now, homeowners know that if there are too many things on the "don't touch" list, they don't stand a chance of being picked, and I think a lot of them go on the show risking things they don't want touched and expecting their neighbours to protect them. Which is a crappy position to put your neighbours in, and stupid to boot. Especially if you get Hildi or Doug, who just love to mess with things people don't want touched. And clearly Hildi's determined to prove to the world that despite "Seattle: 56th Place," painting upholstered furniture is a fabulous idea. Except once again, it's not. Well, maybe the third time's a charm.