I met Genevieve

Well, I went to the Washington Home Show yesterday and got to meet Genevieve Gorder from Trading Spaces. She is so cool.

Of course, the first thing she did when she came on stage was take off her shoes. She said she takes off her shoes because she likes to get dirty, unlike Hilde, and it's much easier to wash her feet than to buy new shoes after every show. It's a good idea she did this because she ended up stepping in the paint tray during the show.

Basically, she had a couple of kids come up and help her with projects and the audience asked questions. She demonstrated the rust wall she has done in the past and she used that silver leaf stuff in a tube and turned a gold frame into a silver one.

Here are some of the highlights:

- A Trading Spaces blooper show is in the works. Yay!!!

- There will be more celebrity shows. A couple of them she mentioned are LL Cool J and the Clintons. She said she can't wait for the Clintons so she can put Bill to work. She said Hillary loves the show.

- Hilde is living in a castle in Paris with her new hubby. She will still be doing the show. She'll come to the states, do 4 shows and then go back to Paris. So we'll see lots of Hilde and then no Hilde for a while.

- Laurie is bringing her new baby on the road so she'll still be on the show regularly.

- Gen wears black all the time because she sweats badly. Not quite as bad a Frank though.

- Someone asked who her favorite designer was and she said Frank. She said he is just so nice.

- If she had to pick another designer to do a room in her house, it would be Hilde because Hilde is so different than her.

- There is another carpenter that helps Ty and Amy Wynn. It's not a secret, he's listed in the credits. She said he's short, about 5'3" and has a long ponytail.

- The designer visits the homeowners the day before so they can see the room to get ideas.

- When the homework is given the designers do not actually leave. The camera crew leaves though. The designer stays and helps the homeowners. She said if it's something more involved, like a kitchen, she may stay til midnight. For a family room she may stay til about 9:30. She doesn't leave until she's sure the homeowners are comfortable finishing up. She was teasing about Vern's perfectionism and says she may stay all night until the homeowners have to beg him to please leave.

- Sometimes day 2 doesn't end til midnight.

- The designers wear the same clothes both days because of editing. Sometimes they do things on day 1 that are shown as being done on day 2. If they wore different clothes you'd see them going back and forth between outfits.


OT - the red skirt she's wearing in the Pennsylvania: 22nd Street episode is the same skirt she wore when I saw her yesterday.

OK, that's about all I can remember right now. I'm going to post a few pictures that I took with my digital camera. I also got my picture taken with her but I'm just going to post the ones of her alone that I took.

pic

pic

That's cool that you went Kal. I was thinking about it, but by the time soccer ended I was too tired! How pathetic.
Cool pix, thanks for sharing:)

Thanks for posting this Kal, It's really great you got to meet her.

Just to add to this great thread:

When someone asked Frank why Gen takes off her shoes he answered "because she is very very tall".

heehee

Thanks so much for psting this here Kal.

I'm not a fan of Gen's designs on the whole, but I di think she;s a nice person.

She has really trimmed and toned her self this year.
She looks like a little hottie.