Vegas: Woodmore Street

Shout-out to engaste and Feng.

Lord, we're still in Vegas. Good thing this is the last week, because MPDP's running out of Vegas-related puns and clichs. (She's wearing jeans and an orange long-sleeved top, for those who care. The shirt has got those pointy, slightly flappy sleeves. I'll be glad when we're done with those. I'm real sick of seeing them.) Cut to Vern, Gen, and Amy Wynn Rockette-ing their way along the Strip. Cut to our homeowners, Kirk and Birgette (whose name is spelled at least two different ways in the same three-sentence synopsis on the TLC website, and differently again on the closed captioning, so I'm just making up one that I think sounds most like what people call her on the show, and I apologize if I'm not even close), and Kenny and Samm. They're outside playing ball with Kenny and Samm's very cute young daughter.

Kenny and Samm want their family room redone. It's a large, yellowy-tan room with a very high, angled ceiling, beige flooring, and a modern ceiling fan with -- hallelujah -- no lights affixed to it. It wouldn't be too bad a room except it's in one of these new houses where someone's been let loose to add all manner of goofy, ill-considered architectural "features." In this case, there are several small, square windows high up on the walls, apropos of...not much; three on one wall, two on the other (and those two are centred above two larger, squarish windows). In the corner is one of those things that would make me roll my eyes even if my first reaction wasn't, "Oh great...how the hell am I going to describe that in a recap?" Here's my run at it: there's a fireplace in the corner, sort of, but set way back from the wall so that there are a few deep shelves above it arranged in a random, angled fashion at different heights. Not satisfied with that, the "designer" of this room has included a large open area beneath the shelves, to the right of the fireplace, and set at a different angle, to house a large TV. (Except these people have a pretty small TV, relative to the TV hole, so it just suggests something like the little Stonehenge in This is Spinal Tap. The shelves above this...unit...have tchotchkes and plants all over them, sort of Hanging Gardens of McBabylon-style. It's sort of a crazy ziggurat. Actually, I think the homeowners have done their best to cope with a ridiculous feature, but unless you go for a look that's heavy on tchotchkes and plants, you have almost no other option with this. Which is why it's stupid; it's really inflexible and limiting. Most of the shelves are too high to display anything other than very large items; little things, small pictures, and whatnot would be completely lost. It'd be a hassle to get books down from there. I'll bet it's fun getting up there all the time to water the plants, too. Maybe they're artificial. And this unit takes up a tremendous amount of space relative to its value. Frank would have gone mental for this room. He would have painted decorative little friezes along the vertical edges of the shelves and put all kinds of doll's heads and whatnot up there. It just cries out to be stacked with crap. If that's a feature, Microsoft must have gotten into the business of designing homes and not just software.

Anyway, the rest of the room is pretty simple and casual; the sofas are a rolled-arm style with maybe beige or light khaki upholstery. There's a side chair covered in some heavily patterned fabric. There's an oval wooden coffee table with a glass top. There's a large colourful print on one wall below the square windows, and a huge, kind of reedy-looking plant in the corner. There's a workout machine behind the sofa, in front of the print. There are accent pillows in greens and orangey reds. Samm says this room is used all the time for reading, watching TV, and playing. Kenny likes the openness and the plant shelves. Samm says they like warm colours; not primary colours, just a little bit muted. They don't like pastels. They prefer intense colours. Kenny doesn't want to see turquoise. He doesn't want to see any kind of "Aztec colours," by which I presume he means Southwest colour schemes. He mentions pink and bright oranges. Samm says that reds would be okay. Kenny agrees that red is nice.

Kirk and Birgette also want their family room done. It's a long rectangular box of a room; I first thought "bowling alley," but while it's narrow, it's not quite as narrow as that; it has more of a small "church hall" feeling. The walls look like they're a peachy-beige shade, and the floor is some kind of mottled tile in a similar but darker tone. There's a modern ceiling fan with a saucer-shaped light in the centre of it. There are two squarish windows near either end of the longest wall; both have white shutters. On the wall at the far end of the room are three small square windows, high up on the wall, with stained glass in each creating the image of a branch outside the window stretching across them. There's a small glass-front cabinet in a dark wood underneath those windows. Back in the middle of the room, there's a sofa and chair in a rolled-arm style with khaki/beige upholstery. They have a coffee table with curved black metal legs and a surface made up of what look like tiles in shades of grey, copper, and bronze. That's sort of interesting-looking. Opposite the seating is a built-in entertainment unit with a fireplace on one side and space for the TV on the other, and a deep mantel above it. Along the same wall, on the other side of a doorway, is a small, lonely bookshelf. The room is just too empty and feels cold, despite the warmish colours used and the hot climate outside. Kirk and Birgette like that the room is very open and bright, but they don't think they're using the room very well. Kirk would like to close it in a little more. Birgette says that they like blues and greens and yellows. Kirk doesn't like purple. Birgette says that orange is not their favourite colour. Kirk likes light colours. Birgette thinks that colours that are too bright might be too much for them, but acknowledges that the point is to do something they might not normally do. Kirk: "I'm definitely open to anything." Except...purple, orange, dark colours, anything too bright...

Key swap. MPDP gives Kenny -- who's got his golf clubs with him -- a hard time over his delusions. Kenny claims he'll dump everything on Samm. Apparently, he also had his ankle operated on not long ago and is still recovering. He's not in a cast or anything that I can see, so he's probably mostly healed.

Kirk and Birgette find Gen up on the "plant shelf" collecting tchotchkes. She's wearing a black halter-style top, and her bra straps are showing throughout the entire episode, which is not only tacky-looking but really distracting. She also seems to have some kind of black scarf wound around her neck; either that, or that shirt has a really weird neck on it. There's also something white around her waist, and it's not one of those big-ass belts; it looks like the bottom of a t-shirt or undershirt or something. Except...her shoulders are bare except for the bra straps, so what could she be wearing underneath this thing? I realize that we're here for the decorating and not the fashion but I find such things oddly distracting.

Gen says that they'll be spending the majority of their time on the ziggurat area of the room. Birgette says she'd like to do something more with that area than just cover it with plants. Kirk would like to open the room up a little more. It seems pretty open to me. Gen says they're getting away from the beige. She says they're going to get the plants down -- since they're "twenty feet" off the ground and she wonders how Samm and Kenny water them -- and make that area the focal point of the room. She says they're rearranging the room, changing the fabrics, and getting rid of the coffee table. Gen announces that they're keeping the ceiling fan: "I like it!" They unload the room.

Samm makes Kenny drops his golf clubs on the way in to meet Vern. Inside, Vern asks Kenny how his ankle is; Kenny assures him that it's getting better. Vern tells Samm she'll have to pick up the slack; she says that's nothing new. Vern asks their thoughts. Samm thinks there could be two areas -- one just for sitting, and one for TV/entertainment activities. She says there's a couch in the garage that could be used in the room. Vern says that the room is enormous and needs more seating, more tables; more of everything. Kenny jokes about bringing their neighbours' hot tub into the room; Vern tells Kenny he might just be excused. Vern thinks that the room needs warmth. There's a shot of a landscape painting Birgette's mother did; they're going to base a lot of the colours on it. They're adding crown molding and replacing the slipcovers. The room is unloaded.

Gen reveals her paint: white (which she calls "cream"), and a very light grey. There's a shot of the paint job in the nearby kitchen, which is diamonds in alternating rows of a bright olive green and an almost orangey-yellow. She says that what goes nicely with yellow is purple -- she suggests thinking of an iris. Sure, but...there aren't a lot of purples that are going to go with that green, never mind the green and the yellow. Sometimes I think the designers on this show flunked Colour 101. I mean, even allowing for the highly subjective nature of colour, give me a break here. So she shows us some light purple paint -- kind of an Easter egg purple. She says that's going to be involved in stripes above the fireplace. Oh, dear. She then shows them a can of a much darker purple. I'm really unsure about this scheme -- and you all know I'm pretty big on purple. Why is purple suddenly all the rage on this show? Haven't we had purple on, like, the last five episodes or something? Anyway, Gen assures Kirk and Birgitte that it's going to be subtle.

Vern's teasing his team about using colours like dark red or burgundy. Samm says that their friends would like earthy, light, happy colours. He shows them some paint which on my screen is so light at first I can't tell if it's white, light yellow, or pale beige. In the tray it looks like a soft yellow. Vern says they're doing something special with the walls.

Gen says they're making floor-to-ceiling curtains out of white linen, and doing something special with the square windows. She shows her team some dark purple velvet which is for large floor cushions. Kirk seems unsure about that. Gen assures him that she's "not doing stripper poles" and that there's no "Viva Las Vegas." She adds, "I know you guys don't need that in your homes." She's got some other shiny violet fabric for throw pillows on the couch. She says that the couches will be covered in ivory. Perfect for people with a toddler. She says the room is ivory, creams, and greys, with a little bit of purple. Birgette likes it. The bumper to the commercial is the little girl blowing bubbles. Aw. So cute. Man, I forgot to tape What Not To Wear again. I love that show, but you'd never know it. I'd better look into some gingko biloba. Oh, and I was wrong in my recap last week about the celebrity episodes; they're not on Easter weekend. It's the weekend before. Still, I don't think we need to pile on with the new episodes all at once. On the other hand...do I really want the season to drag into July? No, I do not.

The bumper back into the show is someone holding up a gold plastic coin or something that says Trading Spaces on it. I think it's a gambling chip or something.

Gen's team is painting; she comes in, saying it's a little quiet. She asks their thoughts. Kirk's trying to paint in the W-formation recommended by experts and paint-can labels alike. Gen asks, in one of those many moments that reveals just how unschooled these "designers" are, about what the big W deal is. She thinks that's a "nice theory," and says the point is just to get the paint on the wall: "Whether it's a W or an I, it works."

Vern's still revealing paint; this one's a pale sandy beige colour. They're going to paint alternating vertical stripes of the soft yellow and pale sand colours.

MPDP says to Kirk, who's way up on a ladder: "Now, you don't like purple." He says he's not a big fan of purple. Gen asks what colour he likes. MPDP: "Oatmeal..." Gen: White..." MPDP: "Beige, sage..." Kirk picks up on sage; he likes that. Gen says he likes the safe colours.

Vern asks his team, as they paint, what colours they'd like to see in their room. Samm would like to see red or orange. Given Gen's penchant for orange, and the way this room turns out, it's kind of too bad she didn't go with orange. I think it would have worked a lot better. Samm says she wants something pretty vibrant: "Not a primary colour, but..." Well, last time I checked, red was one of those. Kenny makes fun of her: "Oh, big words, eh?" She suggest perhaps a secondary or tertiary colour: "Better?" Vern and Kenny feign being impressed. Vern figures she rocked the SATs. Samm admits that she did.

Vern and Samm start marking off the lines for the stripes.

Birgette and Kirk are up on the plant shelves, painting them purple. The tall top shelf is the lighter purple; the one down is the darker purple. Well, the two purples at least go together, although I'm really not nuts about calling even more attention to the shelves. Gen asks whether the colour is freaking them out. Kirk claims that they're warming up to it. Gen says it's really beautiful. She reminds them that when you're painting, the room is naked, and it's never that bare afterward; there are always other things that soften and balance it. That's a good point. I think that's why a lot of people end up with wimpy colours on their walls: they look at a strong colour and think they could never deal with that much red or whatever, but forget that there's going to be furniture and pictures and shelves and mirrors and fixtures and whatnot in front of it, and that there won't be nearly so much of it. Gen likes the way Birgette is lolling in the area on the top shelf. Birgette says that they should make it into a cubbyhole area. I'm not sure what for. Gen's guess: "Like a couch?" I don't think that was what Birgette was thinking, from her intrigued reaction, but Gen thinks it's an awesome idea. She wants to put some pillows up there. She likes that there are little high windows on the wall directly opposite it. Because it's too much trouble to water plants up there, but it's definitely not too much trouble to use it as a seating area. What. Ever. Gen asks her: "You're a sewer, right?" Birgette says that she can sew but not thread a bobbin. How the heck do you sew without being able to do that? Gen says she might have some homework for Birgette.

MPDP's haranguing Vern about his project; he's still taping off stripes, and she wants to know how many more there are. He totally exaggerates and MPDP totally buys it for a moment. It's so easy to pull her leg. I wish the designers would get together and pull a really good gag on her. Not a mean one -- just something that we can all enjoy. Vern makes reference to how the size of the stripes are determined by the "module" established by the size and placement of the stained-glass windows. MPDP makes fun of him, saying, "Now he just sounds like he's talking like aerospace." She jokes that he's making it sound way more impressive than it is. Note that Vern laughs along, but doesn't accuse MPDP of rocking her SATs. The bumper to the commercial is a shot, devoid of context, of Vern making a face of constipated horror as he slowly opens his mouth. Maybe someone threatened to let Kia redecorate his house. It's a pretty funny face.

Birgette and Kirk are sanding an interesting little cabinet with nine square drawers stacked in two rows. It was in their friends' living room already. Birgette is that saying she doesn't feel bad about sanding and staining it because Samm and Kenny just didn't want it painted. They think it will be okay if it's just stained a different colour. I guess they must be staining it a dark colour to match the other wood. Kirk says that if Samm and Kenny don't like it, they can restain it later. Birgette says that they can't restain it. Huh? What are they doing now?

Samm is helping Amy Wynn glue things together. She says she's glad to do some real manly work, at last. Amy Wynn sort of objects to that characterization, and Sam quickly corrects herself: "Womanly work!"

Birgette says that the purples going on the walls look really good. Kirk thinks they look kind of modern to him. He's curious to see how it all comes out. They try to establish a descriptor for their friends' taste: modern? Retro-modern? Kirk doesn't know if "retro-modern" is a term. He doesn't think it's going to be what they were expecting. He thought they'd want something more open, more country. Birgette thinks not. She thinks they would be thinking, "not country." I think, if I were going on this show, I would want my neighbours to have more of a grip on my style than these two seem to have on Samm and Kenny's.

Samm and Amy Wynn are nailing the back onto a cabinet. Sam mangles her nail.

Kirk and Birgette have started staining the little cabinet. Kirk is putting a very dark stain onto it; his wife wonders how many coats they're supposed to do. Kirk says they have to ask Gen. That's something you might want to find out before you go much farther. Birgette wonders if Gen is still there, or if she's ditched them. Birgette comments on how dark it is. It definitely is. I think maybe it should be going on in a thinner layer to begin with, and that they should maybe wipe some of the excess off. It's not paint. Birgette asks if Kirk read the directions.

MPDP and Kenny are painting the coffee tables. Kenny explains their provenance, to satisfy MPDP's curiosity. She asks if they're going to stay white. Kenny: "This is not white. You cannot say 'white' in front of Vern. This is Swiss Mocha." Frink laughs. He gets so much mileage out of colour names. He's still chuckling about the toenail polish I wore for our wedding ("Fiji Weejee Fawn"), and we've been married almost six years. Whereas one of my absolute dream jobs is to get to be the person who researches, selects and especially, names colours for a paint company.

Lord. Speaking of colours. Gen's inside the big TV hole, painting it lipstick red. Where did that come from? We get a shot of Gen just painting merrily over the outlet and its cover. Professor Frink moves instinctively away from me, because he knows my head is about to explode. He's been listening to me rant ever since we bought this house about people who just lazily paint over outlet covers, and hardware, and electrical wiring, and so on, without a care in the world for the mess and hassles they're creating for people down the road. Never mind that doing this always looks like shit, too. It's one of the hallmarks of craptasticness. Birgette comes along wondering about this new colour. Gen explains that she knows it's shocking, but that Kenny and Samm won't see this colour until they open the door to watch the TV, and she thought they'd like a little surprise. Except like most people, they'll probably keep their TV exposed almost all the time, so they'll probably be seeing a lot of that colour.

Samm and Vern pin dark blue fabric onto a yellow flowered couch. It actually looks a lot like a popular Croscill sheet pattern I remember from a few years back. Samm explains that this was the couch in their front room until they inherited a leather model, so this one went to the garage. Vern says the couch is perfectly good, just outdated. He's making very nice, tailored slipcovers for all the furniture, because he doesn't like the loose, sloppy-looking kind. Sing it, brother. Vern and his team will be slipcovering both sofas, the chair, and the ottoman. Man, that's a lot of work, especially if you're doing well-fitted, tailored covers, without much room for error.

Amy Wynn shows Birgette how they're going to attach the pieces of wood to the face of the fireplace. Birgette asks her to do one first. Man, I hope she's putting those nails into the grout and not the tile; otherwise, it's bye-bye, tile. Even if they don't like the wood and want to pull it off, they're going to have holes in their grout. Maybe there won't be too many. Amy Wynn says that once the pieces are attached, she'll come in and sand the edges because they're quite rough. I hope she sands the surfaces, too.

Vern and Samm work on cutting thin pieces of molding to decorate the front of the media cabinet. Vern says that they have to be exact. Samm thinks they can handle it.

Amy Wynn seems to be marking the wood so that the nails will go into the grout and not the tile. Whew. Birgette fires in a nail.

Vern cuts some molding. He shows Samm a diagram that illustrates which cuts have to be mitred and which are straight.

Amy Wynn shows Gen's team a yoga pose ("Child's pose") that's great for when their backs are hurting later tonight. (She does the variation with the arms outstretched in front.) This is actually one of my favourite yoga poses. Birgette's legs aren't in quite the right position for this pose, but she and Kirk gamely imitate Amy Wynn. Gen comes in and says it's "so not yoga time." She then starts pushing down on the middle of Kirk's back, which I'm pretty certain is really not advisable for someone in this position. A yoga teacher might come around and gently press on your lower back to help you get a better stretch, but that's about it. Then Gen leans really heavily on Kirk's middle and upper back. If someone did that to me in this pose, I'd probably turn around and slap her, because I know it would hurt me like hell. Gen says she thinks she just cracked Kirk's back and thinks that's "cool." Yeah, I'll bet every yoga teacher and chiropractor watching this is real impressed. Amy Wynn begs Gen to do the same to her. Well, to each her own spinal injury, I guess. Gen obliges by pushing down on her back, too. Gen offers to "help" Birgette too, but Birgette says she's okay. Gen says they did a fantastic job of painting.

Vern and Kenny start to install the crown molding.

Gen assigns homework. They're to stain the wood Amy Wynn's currently attaching to the wall, and Birgette's to make some cushions for the seating area on the top shelf. (See, it even sounds ridiculous.) Gen says she'll help her with the "corner part."

Vern gives his team homework: he says that because Kenny can't stay on ladders for a long time due to the pain in his ankle, Vern's going to make an "exception" and stay to help them get the crown molding up. Sure, Vern. 'Cause he's usually sliding out of there like Fred Flintstone down the dinosaur at quitting time. Vern says that the rest of the homework is priming and painting the entertainment centre, its doors, and the two doors for the TV niche.

Day Two. Gen arrives. Kirk and Birgette are sitting in front of the wood, which has been stained a very dark brown. It looks really sloppy, rough, and uneven. I wouldn't say that any sanding has gone on there between coats at all. Gen says she loves it. She says it's not too dark because everything in the room is going to be really light "with the exception of the boldness of this fireplace." Yeah, so...it seems like there'll be this heavy, dark blob in the corner weighing down the eye. Well, I could be wrong. We'll see. Gen says that they have to focus on fabric, lighting, putting the room together, and cleaning up.

Vern finds his team in the family room. Samm's eating as Kenny touches up paint on the media cabinet. Vern looks at Samm and says, "Beautiful! Wow, you might want to cut back on the soda." We see a shot of her with some big, fake decayed plastic teeth in her mouth. She says, "Didn't even have time to brush our teeth!" Lovely. She removes them from her mouth. Vern laughs and says he loves it. He says the cabinet looks awesome, as do the doors. They are all happy with the crown molding.

Amy Wynn tells Kirk he's there to help her with the coffee table. But she explains that she cut the pieces herself because she realized that if they were off at all it would make things very difficult. Kirk: "All right, don't trust me." She says she'll let him cut some other pieces. She shows him how the wide pieces of wood, with mitred edges, fit together like a picture frame, and then there's a square basket that goes in the centre.

Kenny, Vern, and MPDP are working on fabric stuff out on a balcony or deck. MPDP's ironing; Kenny's complaining that Vern gets to fill his pillow case with a pillow form while Kenny's stuck stuffing his with batting. Vern explains that Kenny's actually supposed to be using a pillow form, too.

Kirk fires a nail into the coffee table where no nail is required.