On a chilly Sunday afternoon in mid-December, a group gathers around a TV monitor in the yard of a single-family home on south Granville Street. The next few seconds will determine whether they can pack up and head off or if they must completely dismantle the room that a professional designer has sweated blood over for the past few days. Only on prime-time television... The first HGTV series shot in the GVRD, Love It or Lose It combines an extreme makeover with what its producers call "designer Russian roulette". You volunteer your space knowing only that one of three potential "extreme" designers will have carte blanche. Your personal taste doesn't come into it. If you love the results, they're yours, including the furniture. If you choose to lose them, you get freshly painted walls and your old possessions back in position. The crew wagers on the outcome. "Most people love it," says series creator and executive producer Blair Reekie, with a hint of disappointment: they were trying for an even split.
News of the series drew applications from floods of owners of single-family homes, bungalows, even a mansion on Southwest Marine Drive, who couldn't wait to hand their places over to strangers to take apart. Finding designers, however, took time. Reekie does a savagely funny impression of the typical audition. Those who applied, he says, were "too conservative, very West Side, very like Linda Reeves. 'I listen to the client and only work with Jordan's.' Or 'Everyone's doing fusion.'" He wanted distinct voices. Specializing in gothic, retro, modern, Asian, Indian, and country, the six-pack of "extreme" designers who made the final cut are "all bizarre characters with a great sense of style".
Not to give too much of the game away, the first show rockets from '70s colonial back to '60s Austin Powers. Well, as the nice homeowners admit, they did want a change. Most people yearn for that Whistler feel: comfy, cozy, country. What they get often isn't. Theatricality rules. If you're still willing to take the chance, apply at www.loveitorloseit.ca/. "We're casting the room, the people," Reekie says, "and we're almost casting the yard"--used, in this case, for the catering crew. Fussbudgets are welcome. (One woman revealed that an interior designer had fired her.) Potty mouths: stay away. Viewers may say "*%#$%" at the screen, but participants are more moderate, even the woman who found herself facing a nearly two-metre grizzly and other taxidermical masterpieces.
And then there was the Indian love bedroom. Approaches may be way off the conventional scale, but the goal is to challenge tastes, not offend them. "It helps the homeowner to see the space in a different way," says "Extreme Asia" designer Mah Wai Poi, who will work on four or five rooms in the 26-part series. Feng shui principles have steered the look of today's room, but "the last one was Zen minimalism. We put a bamboo forest in a living room in North Vancouver. The homeowners were looking for 'rustic Whistler'; I gave them rustic Mount Fuji." Show host Tamara Taggart, of CTV, can't imagine volunteering her place. "You're not allowed to drive by or phone. I would freak out," she says.
It's now almost 3 p.m., and owner Emma Isaac with adult daughters Melissa and Gemma are en route from downtown to a space that, when they last saw it, featured an anything-goes decorative style with elements of Spanish Colonial and IKEA, and plentiful knickknacks. They only know that the transformation will be Asian, modern, or gothic. Mom wants the first, the daughters are hoping for modern, but being put up in the flamboyant Le Soleil suites is, they think, a subtle hint that they're destined for gothic.
They can relax. What Mah has created is a serene, richly textured room in natural colours: the brick fireplace has been painted a warm grey; a simple branch is displayed on the wall; curtains are shimmery gold. Deft choice and placement of furniture such as temple tables and dark-red cuboid boxes that double as seating and storage visually enlarge the 3.75-by-5.7-metre space. A 40-drawer medicine chest stands at one side of the fireplace. Gentle sound comes from a magnificent "water wall". Whatever the final decision, these last two will go--sponsors can only be generous to a point--but because they are all local, it does mean that if you like what you see on the screen, right down to the General Paints paint on the wall, you can track it down.
The technical term for the moment when naked eyes meet dressed room is "the reveal". Cameras are ready to roll. Blindfolds await on the top of the fridge. At
3 p.m. on the nose, the trio comes in via the lane. You could bottle the smiles and excitement. We crowd around the monitor and watch them led into the room inside. Scene 57. Take 1. A-a-a-and action! We watch tears, smiles, money change hands in a family bet. There's no sound, but we're in no doubt. They love it.
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