Miramar: Avenue 164

Props to gforce2002.

MPDP's ripping through a swamp in the Everglades on a boat and squealing with joy. She's wearing jeans and a flowered t-shirt. Insert 'gator-related puns and clichs here. Our pool-playing homeowners are Rhonda and Paul, and Adina and her friend, Alina. Back to MPDP, holding a sullen-looking baby 'gator. Aw. All baby animals are cute, even the deadly ones. There's a bigger one at her feet. They both seem really comatose and un-'gator-like. Maybe Denise Cramsey drugged 'em. Can't have the star getting attacked by carnivorous wild animals. Though...you could promote the heck out of that. Cut to Frank and Doug playing Frisbee with Ty. Ty is wearing a hat I think Gilligan rejected.

Rhonda and Paul want their bedroom updated. It's yet another one of these barn-sized bedrooms. I don't understand the appeal of these bedrooms that are the size of one-bedroom apartments. Even divided into sleeping/dressing/sitting spaces, there's still gobs of square footage left over. Wouldn't people rather have a bigger kitchen, a larger living room, a more spacious bathroom? How about having a bit more of a yard? Why allocate so much space to a room most people just sleep and get dressed in? Most of these McMansion-type places must have good-sized living rooms and family rooms. How much more "sitting space" do you need? I'm sure it seems grand and luxurious when you're buying the house, but be honest: do you really need a bedroom larger than Hugh Hefner's? It doesn't seem to be working for most people. We see episode after episode of homeowners on this show who have no idea how to furnish or decorate such large rooms, wringing their hands and wailing for help. Maybe, just maybe, less could be more. Anyway, it's a big beige box. There's a suite of matching furniture in a warm, orangey-toned wood: dresser, chest of drawers, mirror, tables, bed frame, armoires, etc. There are tchotchkes all over the horizontal surfaces. One half of the room is devoted to the bed. It looks like the headboard is this huge mirrored thing. At the far end of the room, there's sort of a seating/TV-watching area where, I gather, Paul has set up his videogames. There are wood or wood-look blinds on all the windows. The furniture's all placed around the perimeter of the room. If ever a room cried out to have some of the furniture pulled away from the wall, this is it. Rhonda says she loves colour but does not like pastels. That's about all we hear about what they want for this room.

Adina's kitchen features white mica cabinets and black mica countertops. All her appliances are black, and there's a work island. The room is very open to the rest of the house. The walls are some indistinct yellowy-taupey-beige and the floor is mottled pinky-beige tile. Just off the kitchen there's a small eating area in front of a bay window, with a chrome dinette set. She doesn't like all the black and white and remarks, at what I suspect is the prompting of an interviewer who knows what Doug is planning, that she mostly wants the kitchen "all one colour." Adina's friend Alina says there's too much white and it's too plain and that's why Adina doesn't want to cook there.

Key swap. Man, I think they've been in the sunny south too much. The skin on MPDP's chest looks fried. She mixes up Adina's and Alina's names. We find out that Rhonda's a cop.

Adina and Alina find Frank scattering bits of bread on the floor so that if they get lost in the huge room, they can find their way back. Whatever works, I guess. Frank says they're going to paint. He's planning to make a seating area where there already is one, perhaps with a coffee table as well as storage for their TV and A/V equipment. There may be some "art" that functions as a room divider. I can remember no instance of this in a room of Frank's that ever looked good. He says they need a headboard, drapes, and bedding. They unload the room. Frank vacuums up bread crumbs.

Doug's taking some of the seventy-six magnets off the fridge when Paul and Rhonda arrive. He complains, "Have people not learned that these are not good taste?" Yeah, I'm definitely taking lectures on good taste from a guy who clips his toenails on TV and then puts a butt-ugly painting of a foot in a living room. In other news, I will also be taking design advice from Kia. Doug refers to the mess of magnets as meshuggeneh (which means "a crazy woman"). I think mish-mosh ("mess," "hodgepodge") or even mishegoss (literally, "insanity" or "madness," though nearly always meant playfully) would be closer to what he means. It's sweet when WASP-y types try to bring the Yiddish, though. Paul says his idea for the room is a tropical or Caribbean theme. Doug thinks that's kind of redundant for Florida. Rhonda doesn't like the black countertops; she says they've gotta go. Doug says they're going to paint all the cabinets a dark red and then embellish them with panelling and molding to give them a hand-done, Caribbean feel. The walls will be light green. They don't have the money to change the countertops, so those are staying the same. They empty the room.

Adina and Alina arrange the tarp.

Doug and his team remove the cabinet doors. They're attached with these modern hinges that snap on and off easily. Frink's so impressed his eyes are like saucers. (We just went through a nightmare with the old hinges on our bathroom cabinets.) They've numbered all the doors and drawers in accordance with a diagram. The bumper to the commercial is MPDP holding the baby 'gator and making a silly 'fraidy face.

The bumper back into the show is MPDP doing danceresque poses on one foot on the boat as it whizzes through the swamp. Frink wants to see her pirouette at that speed. Frank does his paint reveal. It's fire engine red. My husband starts muttering, "Redrum...redrum..." Frank's got tinted primer, too. He wants to see if they can get away without using the primer. Why? He's already bought it. It's right there. Red is a notoriously difficult colour with which to get good coverage. He says he's okay with eating the cost of the primer (which was $36). Primer typically dries faster than paint. Why not use it? This makes no sense.

Rhonda and Paul remove cabinet doors.

Frank's team thinks the red will cover fine without primer. Suddenly, they hear sirens outside the house. Cut to a fire engine driving up in front of the house. MPDP's in the street to meet it; Ty's shown up, too. Mmm...firemen. Yes, I have a thing for them. Shut up! They've got too much gear on for me to see if they're really cute, but the one to MPDP has a nice smile. Ty, of course -- sensing that both firemen and a fire truck are going to seriously hog the attention -- starts bellowing about whether there's a fire in one of the houses. MPDP explains to the firemen that there's no fire; they accidentally tripped an alarm. MPDP laughs and shoves Ty away, telling the firemen, "You can take a look if you want, but really, it's just because we're idiots." Well, if the shoe fits...

Frank's team has done some test-painting. They defer the decision to Frank. Alina: "You're da man!" Frank: "Oh, bless your heart." He decides to take a chance and skip the primer.

MPDP arrives in Adina's kitchen and starts to tell Paul and Rhonda what's going on. The firemen are also there. Ty comes running in with a garden hose, using a construction pylon as a megaphone (like he needs amplification) and spraying Paul and Rhonda with the hose. Paul and Rhonda squeal and laugh; MPDP had the presence of mind (or more likely, enough warning) to get out of the way. Doug wanders in, eating a bag of chips and looking puzzled. Apparently there's no shortage of time for screwing around. Ty yells about fire. The firemen just smile nervously for the cameras. Doug offers the firemen some chips. They refuse. I guess they're on duty.

Adina and Alina paint the walls. They think Rhonda will like it.

Doug finds Paul and Rhonda in another room, having changed into dry clothes. Rhonda's drying her hair. He asks, "What is this, a beauty salon?" Doug mocks the mirror of Adina's that Rhonda's using, but we don't get to see it.

MPDP arrives in Frank's room. Adina's painted greetings on the wall to her parents and various friends or relatives. That's kind of clever. MPDP says that the bedroom is huge; with the ensuite, it's larger, in fact, than MPDP's entire apartment. On the other hand, MPDP must be on the road with this show so much that she hardly uses it as more than a closet anyway. ["And if you've seen MPDP's husband...well, you can make your own joke about who's living in a closet." -- Wing Chun]

Doug shows his team some flamingo-coloured paint. Rhonda says it's absolutely disgusting. She hates pink. Doug says it's Caribbean. Rhonda says okay. He explains that it's just the primer and shows them the real cabinet colour, which is a very strong red, although slightly orangier than Frank's. They love it.

Adina's tired of painting. Frank is up on a ladder doing the edge along the ceiling with a tiny art brush, because of course it's a popcorn ceiling and they can't tape it off effectively.

Doug gives a vague, rambling explanation of what they're doing with molding to decorate the cabinet doors.

Frank talks to Ty about his projects. Frank says he's in hell. Ty wipes some sweat off Frank's head, asking if he's hot. Professor Frink: "Frank should look into some terrycloth shirts." Frank says it's beyond hot. Ty: "You're beyond hot, man! You're steaming!" You know, in case you were wondering, there is such a thing as too much HoYay! Ty looks at Frank's drawing and marvels, "Wow! Look at this, Frank! This is awesome! It looks like it's from Star Trek or something." Frank wants the designs to be "very futuristic." Whatever. The night tables are the standard semicircle on a triangular, wall-mounted support. Zzzz. There's also a tall open shelving unit with columns in a hyperbolic shape. Ty: "You've switched out folk for funk! I love it!" Frank gives Ty a glance, like he can't tell if Ty's patronizing him or not. Or maybe he just thinks Ty's a moron. Ty: "I mean, you're really kicking the funk out, Frank!" Shut the funk up, Ty.

Doug is uncapping can after can of paint: bright yellow, a softer yellow, a strong blue, a kind of Kelly green, and dark red. And I don't think any of these are the wall colour. My God, Doug's channelling Frank. I think this might be the First Horseman of the Apocalypse. Frink: "'I call this room Sixteen Clowns Died In It.'"

Back to Frank and Ty. They talk about measurements.

Doug and Paul paint cabinets. Those are damn bright.

Frank's team has realized that they are going to need more paint for the walls. How very unforeseeable. I notice that they've left the blinds up and painted around them. That should ensure that there are lots of tiny red spatters on them. MPDP wants to know if Frank has enough money for more paint. He doesn't know. She doesn't understand why he doesn't know.

Doug arrives with more paint, and tells his team that they're insanely far behind. He invites them over to see the wall colour, which on my screen is a fairly greenish-yellow: "It's another colour in the rainbow! It's a happy day." He sounds rather...insincere. He tosses the lid onto the counter with a clatter.