It’s safe to say I am an Interior Design and property show junkie, I watch them all and love them all. Except my latest discovery!
Just discovered a new show on BBC 2 UK called Your Home in Their Hands. What a waste of time. The description said “Brave homeowners hand over their front door keys to amateur designers hoping that they will solve their design dilemmas. Overseeing proceedings and assessing the results is straight-talking interior designer Celia Sawyer.”
Ohhh lovely I thought, I like Celia. But. When the promo shot is a 50 year old Barbie-like woman standing in a purple PVC dress in the middle of a room that looks like a dolls house, there is a sign here that this could be bad. And sadly it was.
Handing over your home to an amateur designer is a risk and one you could prepare yourself for if you thought that the renowned “straight-talking” Celia Sawyer was on the case to come in and maybe sort out the mess. Well this is a show without a happy ending and the clue is in the description…”hoping”.
I have only watched one episode (and am reluctant to watch any more) so I can give you a brief overview on why I am so pained by this show.
First of all Head Honcho Celia meets with the homeowners. Her job is to listen to them and assess their needs and then relay it back to two amateur designers.
Her disapproval of the homeowners and their home was written all over her face, which is cringeworthy. They know it’s a mess and don’t know how to fix it which is why they’ve called in a designer. Then to see her only give half of the brief back to the designers had me clenching my teeth. I didn’t give up hope because I assumed she might oversee, offer guidance, uh no! She watches them go totally off on a tangent, basically shatter someones dream and says nothing. What the….?! THEN she tells the two designers who have opposing styles to join up and do a third room. Ok please tell me you are going to step in here Celia because two strong headed designers in one room is a recipe for disaster. Maybe I don’t get but I think this is what the producers wanted, a disaster, unfortunately in this instance, disaster doesn’t make good TV. To watch two people who don’t really have a clue trying to talk each other round to their way of thinking is a nightmare. Again Celia delivers a poort brief and oversees nothing, arghh. She then smugly shows the homeowner the mess that is their home, whilst the designers listen in, then she calls in the designers to meet the homeowners. The whole thing is embarrassing especially since this is it. That is the end of the show. No fixing of the mess, no tears of joy, just a few people awkardly standing in a room, hating the room and each other.
What is that about? An hour of my life I can’t get back.
Why am I so peeved about this show? I think it’s the poor communication that bugs me the most. In any service business when you are the middleman the most important thing is that you listen to the needs of your client and ensure that you can communicate exactly what they want, . You want to see your client happy, that is your aim, to give them what they want. I couldn’t really see the point of this show. Surely they want to promote the benefits of having an Interior Designer, maybe not. It didn’t really have an underlying message, it doesn’t leave you with a warm glow, just a feeling of expecting something more for your 60 mins.
If you get to watch the full episode let me know what you think in the comments below