How my elimination went down...

So, by now basically the world knows that I got the boot on this, the 5th episode of Design Star.  This was the dreaded kitchen challenge, which traditionally has been one of the toughest to navigate through.  The positive aspect to this episode was the fact that a certain Miss Paula Deen came to join the crew, and offer her insight on things...

 

Let's break this down... Kitchen Challenge.  This was a 2 day challenge, which is ridiculously absurd to begin with, but it is what it is... We used Lumber Liquidators, Cabinets to Go and a local stone supplier to get the heavy construction done.  I was teamed, again with the lovely Leslie.  We were required to immediately pick our materials, choice of flooring, cabinets and counters within minutes of us choosing our "inspirational" teapot, which was "Global".

Everyone works differently in the "real world" but choosing paint colors is not something that I normally do as the first step in a project, but in TV land, we need to do this right out of the gate so the paint can be mixed, purchased and delivered as soon as possible to allow us time to actually paint the walls...  We were allowed 3 gallons of paint...  Basically given the size of the room, this roughly translates to a gallon a wall, more or less. Leslie and I chose to keep a more subtle color palatte, which was a light heathery grey and a soft celedon.  So, keep this in mind, I had 2 colors to work with...  Upon starting to paint the walls, I realized 3 out of the 4 kitchens are painting green up on the walls.  I quickly think that I need to alter the green in some way to stand out.  I decide to go with the batik look... Okay, first of all, I'm not a painter, I'm not a faux finisher...  I go with whatever I can figure out... I start with feathering vertical lines onto the wall in the grey color and it's still not reading dark enough, so the only other pigment I have access to is part of our HGTV supply bag.  I crushed up a brown and black pastel and rubbed it into my "stripes"... This is what I had to work with.  I had to also just get something up and done...

This basically took up the first day of work... Keep in mind also, when we say "first day" and "second day" of work, don't assume these are 12 hour work days, or even 8 hour work days.  For each challenge that time varied, so it's not always a never ending time clock.

Next day, we arrive, in theory all the floors should be laid, the cabinets installed, the counter tops in and the appliances in place.  It happened that Leslie and my plot was the last in the order of work, so we arrived to floors down... That's it... They were still installing cabinets, meaning that the stone guys needed to follow and the appliances... We had a full crew of workers in and out working over us for hours...  Because we happened to get this unfortunate work schedule it stalled certain things.  Like the backsplash.  You can't install a backsplash till you've got a counter for it to rest on... Not to mention that we were not delivered the thin set to apply the tiles to the walls, despite us ordering it... I had to wait to put the backsplash on till my area was clear, at which time I was using Silicone and a caulk gun to get whatever I could up...

As for the "tragic" bench... I still don't think it was so bad, but at this point in the game, comments and criticism is par for the course.  You're going to get critiqued no matter what.  Then there's the camera challenge.  I love how it was edited so much to make my sentences into gibberish statements... I have no comment.  This challenge was very difficult, both physically and mentally.

At the end of the day, I'm not placing blame on anyone, or giving any excuses... I'm a big boy and can take the heat, but I just wanted it to be known that as finalist, we just don't give up, or throw in the towel.  We are stressed beyond belief and are pushed hard.  The time I spent on Design Star albeit short, was an amazing one.  People's first question is, "Would I do it again?"... Absolutely.

This was the quite a ride that I tried my best at... I don't think I was shown in a negative light, and constantly put out great work, which is all I wanted to do...  This was such a priceless experience that will only catapult me into really really spectacular things...

Love you all for the support!
(All photos from HGTV.com)