Santa Monica: Ocean Park

Shout-out to Vel, and props to mieledio for the Gottlieb links.

MPDP appears in jeans and a green flowered blouse with weird sleeves. The crew is in Santa Monica. Cut to the homeowners doing yoga together. They live in the same condo, two floors apart. Our cast today is Vern, Laurie, and Ty. So we've got Yip, Drip, Dip and Mip. The first homeowners are Kristin and Amy, two young women who share a condo. They want their living room redone. They use it for watching TV and working on the computer. It's a large room but has a somewhat awkward shape, which seems to be pretty typical for condos. The walls seem to be a yellowy-beige colour. The rug is beige. There's a simple fireplace with no mantel; this is about the only architectural feature in the room. They've got sofas with light grey upholstery; another sofa with a white slipcover; glass-topped tables; a black IKEA shelving unit; a TV on a small stand; and a small computer workstation. The TV and computer are in corners; the furniture is arranged around the fireplace. It's comfortable-looking but blah. Amy and Kristin describe the room as a hodgepodge and say they feel they need to use the space better and implement some kind of unifying theme. They like clean lines and contemporary design. They're not into "crazy wild" stuff like animal prints. Of their neighbour, Doug, they say that he's recently divorced, so they would like to give him something to "accentuate his bachelor lifestyle." Like what? A series of neon signs pointing to his bedroom?

Cut to the yogi and yoginis. Two of the women are trying to force Doug's legs into the lotus position. He's being a good sport about it. Kristin and Amy have convinced their friend Emily to be Doug's partner for the show. Emily -- who's just the cutest thing -- explains that Amy introduced her to Doug at a dinner party, and that they've been friends ever since. Professor Frink: "They're so into each other." I kind of have to agree. Doug wants his master bedroom done. He says it's where he spends most of his time. Well, never mind those neon signs, then. Sounds like he's doing fine. It's not a big room; I'm guessing 10' or 11' x 14'. He's painted the walls a nice, light green with a yellowy undertone. The carpet is beige. There's a pair of sliding doors that lead to a balcony, covered with extremely long drapes that are more than just puddled on the floor. There's a whole pond there. The green of the drapes seems slightly off from the wall colour. There's a king-sized bed with a frame in a warm wood tone; the headboard has vertical slats. The cover on the bed looks like a muted gold chenille. There isn't much in the room, other than a couple of side chairs and a floor lamp. And a table lamp that's on the floor. And a large framed picture, leaning against the wall. Doug has no dressers or chests of drawers that I can see. I'm not even sure I've seen a closet yet. Emily says that Doug hasn't done much with the room other than paint it "puke green." Hey, it's not that bad a colour. She says he spends most of his time sleeping in there, but she thinks he could be doing a bit more than just sleeping in the bedroom. I think Doug and Emily should discuss her ideas on that front in detail. Doug says that he's tried to be "a little bit more edgy." He doesn't care how good something looks; it has to be comfortable or serve a purpose. Frink's all over that sentiment. Emily thinks Doug needs some storage. He doesn't have anything but a bed, really. Okay, finally I can see that there are three doors in the room. One's gotta be the closet.

Key swap. Doug's got his stuff in a clear plastic zippered bag, the kind you get when you buy a set of sheets. I guess his wife got all the suitcases, knapsacks, tote bags, and duffels in the divorce. MPDP makes much of this. Doug's too secure in his minimalism to be rattled by it. MPDP says that if there's any money left over, she'll let him use it to buy a bag.

Kristin and Amy find Vern marvelling over the excess curtain fabric. They want to bring some class into the room. Vern wants to do a scheme that's light and open and relates to the ocean, which is very close by. He wants to make a new bed with a headboard that incorporates some nightstands. They unload the room.

As Emily and Doug enter the other condo, Emily wonders what colour Laurie's going to use. Excuse me while I make a very unladylike snorting sound. It doesn't matter if Laurie calls it lavender, brick, or cardamom -- it's going to be yellow. Doug and Emily find Laurie and Ty discussing carpentry plans for the fireplace. Emily thinks they definitely need to do something about the carpet. A close-up shows that it could be cleaner. Emily seems have a problem with the colour, though. Laurie says that their neighbours want a gallery feel: "That is the one bit of information that came to me." One bit? Surely in all the interviews and application information and so forth, there must have been something other than that. Laurie says that, from that description, she gets that Amy and Kristin want something sleek and modern with added touches of colour. Laurie says that they're going to give Kristin and Amy a more intimate seating arrangement; they're bringing in "big, dramatic canvases" and a mantel. She shows Doug and Emily a drawing of the room; Emily says she loves it. They unload the room. Man, there are some nasty black blotches on the carpet near the TV corner.

MPDP's all, "Ta-da!" Vern comes in with some dark blue fabric. It's nice, but you know, "ta-da"? Vern unfolds the dark blue fabric, which is for curtain panels; there's also some lighter blue for pillows. He shows his paint, which is a very pale blue.

Laurie's ready to reveal her paint. Do I actually have to recap this? Is there anyone on the planet who doesn't know what colour this is going to be? Well, apparently there's one guy in Kyrgyzstan with a terrible narcolepsy problem who's a little vague. So as not to discriminate against the narcoleptic, let's play along. Frink and I are watching in two different rooms and we both yell out "yellow" at the same time. Laurie makes Doug and Emily keep their eyes closed as she opens a can of egg yolk-coloured paint, and paints some on the wall, saying, "I like to call this colour...something that starts with a C. Can you guess?" Frink yells, "Corn!" I think she's going to call it "camel," since she's used that in the past. Not that I think camels are remotely this colour. Or maybe "citron" or "citrine." Doug: "Chocolate?" Emily: "Coral?" Both excellent guesses, considering how often those colours make appearances on this show. Doug guesses "Chrysanthemum." Laurie thinks that's quite creative.

Vern's got four samples painted on the wall; they look like: very pale blue, pale blue, white/cream, and a dark blue (or possibly black). The first two are for the walls, the third is for furniture, and the last is an accent colour. MPDP: "Very oceany, too." Vern thinks it's a nice change from the green.

Emily opens her eyes and laughs, "It's yellow!" Laurie: "It's cork." Oh, for the love of God. In what alternate reality is cork this colour? Emily: "Oh, nooooo!" Laurie: "It's cork. It's cork. It's cork." Corkypatra, Queen of Denial.

Vern's team has painted one of the blue colours, which is drying a lot darker than it looked wet. Kristin likes it and thinks it's calming. Amy thinks it makes the room look bigger.

Laurie tells her team "another" reason why she chose this colour. She mentions the budget, and that Kristin and Amy had "fabulous sofas" to work with in a blue-slate-grey colour. While Doug and Emily paint, she gives them a condescending lecture about the "little colour wheel," claiming that complementary colours are the ones opposite each other. She says that the opposite of blue on the colour wheel is yellow. Is it, now? I don't see it that way at all. I find it hard to speak of direct opposites when you're starting with a triad (in the case of pigment: red, yellow, blue). The secondary colour that's actually opposite to blue is orange. ["And the secondary colour that's actually opposite to yellow is purple. Time to go back to design school, Laurie. Or maybe get Gibson a baby book about the colour wheel and refresh your memory." -- Wing Chun] Also, didn't she just get finished insisting this colour is "cork," and not yellow? Shut up, Laurie.

As they paint, Vern says he thinks the room is going to be soothing, which is nice for a bedroom. Unless Doug's a wild man. He asks his team if that's what Doug is like. They say he's not, though they suspect Doug thinks otherwise. Vern: "Right...because he painted his room green?"

Emily asks Doug what he would really hate in his room. Doug doesn't even have to think about it; he busts out with this: "A scalloped bed. A bed shaped like a clam that rotated in circles and had a mirror on the ceiling. That might be a bit much." Sounds like someone took his honeymoon at a cheesy hotel in either Las Vegas or the Poconos. I'll bet Kia's sorry she didn't think of that first.

Amy worries that the "baby blue" colour might not be masculine enough for Doug.

Vern discusses carpentry with Ty, who's wearing a t-shirt that says "Stoked" and features an image of some guy with a 'fro. I'll bet he wore that just for Vern. Vern's brought out a simple light brown statue of the young Buddha that's maybe twelve or fourteen inches high.

Doug and Emily assemble a ready-made metal computer desk.

Vern explains that the statue will be sitting in a niche in the headboard he wants Ty to build. It seems the headboard will run all along the wall, and on each side there'll be these planters where orchids will be placed with river rocks around them. Ty listens quietly but looks around a couple of times with this "yikes" expression on his face. Vern emphasizes how Zen and calm the room is going to be. Ty: "I'm getting calm just thinking about it." Frink: "That's a first for him." Me: "Getting calm, or thinking?"

Doug and Emily have assembled the computer table. MPDP arrives just in time to be no help whatsoever.

Ty appears overwhelmed by the thought and precision Vern's put into his carpentry plans and drawings.

Laurie and MPDP are outside working on making furniture or something out of Gateway Computer boxes. Sorry, my mistake: it's Art History 101 with Ms. Hickson-Smith. This time we're getting a lecture on Adolph Gottlieb, the abstract artist whose work is being ripped off today. There's a large white canvas with amoebic grey blobs outlined in black (a little like the last image on the link above). Laurie says that there will be two paintings, slightly different from each other, on either side of the fireplace. She tells MPDP that Gottlieb was known for his slightly amoebic, organic shapes. MPDP: "Well, these look like rocks, so I guess that's kind of organic." Laurie doesn't really see it at first, but then allows that they look like "stone pebbles" sitting in something or other. MPDP interjects: "Or cowhide!" Laurie: "No, no, no. No cowhide." Except it looks like the kind of hide you'd see on cows if they were grey and white and, um, cartoons. Laurie makes vague cutting gestures at her throat.

Vern shows his team the paint they're going to use for furnishings and shelves. They're going to put together a long shelf for one wall which will hold five large pillar candles in order to add romance to the room.

MPDP and Laurie have filled in some of the negative white space with blotchy, spongey-effect "cork" (i.e., yellow) paint. They seem to be done, because MPDP says, "Oh God, Laurie, tell me there's some more steps here." Laurie goes back into art-teacher mode, bloviating about what it's supposed to look like -- amoebic and organic -- while MPDP looks skeptically at what it actually is. She asks: "Is poop organic? Because this is like...so crappy!" She doubles over, laughing.

Vern is doing something with batting and a nail gun, saying he feels that Doug's bed just didn't fit the room. Kristin makes a remark about replacing Doug's $5000 bed with this. That is indeed Vern's intention. Five thousand bucks? It's a nice enough bed, I guess, but I'd venture to say he paid about $4000 too much for it. I guess that's why he can't afford a tote bag.

Laurie: "This is supposed to evoke...questions..." Well, on that front, it's a smashing success. MPDP cracks up again, and actually falls down on the ground laughing her ass off. It's about time someone took Laurie down a few pegs with this ridiculous imitation of great artists and the almost insufferable pretension and condescension about it, to which everyone within earshot is always subjected. MPDP is positively howling, and as she gets back up, she says, "I got a question, all right: do we have to put it in the room?" See, I can't understand why they've been keeping this MPDP under lock and key. Stuff it with that perky peacemaker crap. I'm glad they're finally letting her be snarky if she wants. Or maybe, after fifty episodes, she just can't stand it anymore. Meet you in the looney bin in June, Mindy.

Vern explains that they're making padded, upholstered panels with which to cover the box spring.

Laurie finds Ty working on her mantel. There's been some kind of communication problem, and Ty's made a fireplace surround that's six inches deep, whereas all Laurie wanted was a ledge seven inches deep, or something like that. Ty wants to take a look at the drawings. Well, I guess he wasn't working from any, and Laurie says that they decided this morning not to do any. Bad decision.

Kristin makes a big production of being scared of the nail gun. Vern has to cajole her to hold the fabric tightly while he tries to fasten it to the MDF. He fires one nail and she runs away, giggling. God, get a grip. It's a nail gun. It's not a .44 Magnum. Vern's mystified by Kristin's skittishness. He yells, "Amy?" Kristin's laughing, and says something to the effect that she's going to cry. It's just not that scary, and it's not that funny.

Ty -- who's wearing a smal respiratory mask on his head sort of like a tiny surgical party hat, or a particularly turgid yarmulke -- tells Laurie that if she doesn't like it, he'll be happy to just nail a two-by-four and a piece of wood onto the fireplace, but that she wishes she had told him before he went to the trouble of building this. He's behind on her other project now. He walks away telling her to ponder it while he works on other stuff: "Whoo! Never a dull moment here on Trading Spaces." Laurie laughs to herself and says that they'll make it work.

Vern gets Amy's help while Kristin pretends to help but has got her face turned as far away as possible, like she's changing a stinky diaper or something. Vern fires a nail in, and can't resist yelling, "Ow!" really loudly as if he nailed his hand. Kristin jumps away squealing and giggling and generally making a fool of herself while Vern laughs to himself. Man, I wish Amy Wynn were here to wipe the floor with this chick.