Design shows, home tours: No escaping furnitureland
Joan Gunin, Leather editor -- Furniture Today, July 28, 2008
A friend once asked if I ever watch “those design shows” on TV. I responded rather curtly saying something like, no, I am involved with that all week long. If I need a designer, I can just call one myself.
While on vacation at the Jersey Shore last week, someone again asked if I wanted to take a tour of Victorian cottages. Heck, no. Don't you understand? I am on vacation! Also, years back I used to write advance stories about home tours. I have seen the interiors of many houses. So, today, if they're not paying me for it, sorry, not interested…
However, I did find myself window-shopping at some trendy furniture stores if only because they were in a most unusual place — the soon-to-be-rejuvenated boardwalk in Asbury Park, N.J. (You can stop laughing now. … It's my vacation).
I couldn't help wandering around at Corazza Mid-Century Home Furnishings, Bodega and Motif, which are inside the Grand Arcade at Convention Hall. These stores allow beachgoers and day-trippers to shop for leather sofas, gathering tables or tsotchkes when they need a respite from the sun.
It may seem odd now, but developer Madison Marquette has big plans for this famed city by the sea's renaissance, including restaurants, upscale residences and general restoration. And if furniture is a part of it, all the better.
But getting back to TV design shows. While I do find myself catching bits and pieces of some of them — (I once saw the interior of Bob Mackie's California home, which I found interesting if only because I have met the designer several times) — I prefer that HGTV show where real estate agents take first-time buyers house-shopping, possibly because I could be in the market myself. But, instead of thinking about which house the buyer is going to choose, I'm figuring out which house would be best for me!
Another show that I am (embarrassedly) obsessed with is The Style Network's “Clean House.” Comedienne Niecy Nash and a design team help homeowners take control of their “mayhem and foolishness” by plowing through hideous piles of clutter, staging yard sales and donating the rest. The team then uses the profits to buy new furniture, repurpose others and create fresh room settings — usually to the homeowners' liking. Companies such as Ashley, Broyhill, Coaster and Pier 1 Imports are among those tapped to deliver truckloads of new furniture.
I suspect the producers help trash the rooms first; how anyone can live in such a cluttered state is beyond me. .
Thankfully, my home looks nothing like the “befores” on “Clean House” — or the “afters” for that matter — but still the show inspires me to toss, toss, toss.
As the late George Carlin said, “Your house is a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get ... more stuff! Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore.”
