Hey hey hey!!! I’m back with the Episode 4 review of Interior Design Masters, and this week Frank’s committed to being nice and less pig-headed 👀. So let’s jump right in and see what he’s been able to achieve this week!

The Challenge: The contestants head to the University of Lester for a dorm room overhaul. The remaining six contestants are divided into two teams, where they each will redesign a one bedroom studio. The teams will also be responsible for upgrading a community kitchen. So altogether, that’s six individual studio units and 2 community kitchens. Team 1 is Frank, Ju, and Cassie. Team 2 is Nikki, Kyle and Jerome. Seems straight forward enough. The teams have a budget of £1500 (1500 pounds for those who didn’t know) for each room and £500 for the common area. So let’s see how this all plays out.

The Work: So immediately, Jerome feels himself in a good spot because he’s teamed up with two of “the better” contestants. Now, I can’t fault him for checking the competition and recognizing the talent of his team members, but it seems like he’s ready to just lean on them to get through the challenge. That’s never a good idea. You’ve gotta have ideas of your own. He also seems to have an aversion to germs and dirty things (lol), which will be tough if he’s going to continue in this industry.

The designers are definitely stretching themselves this episode as the competition starts to really heat up. Ju is pushing the boundaries and trying something new with black 😲. Frank is adding wallpaper to the ceiling in an asymmetric pattern (although we’ll see how that pattern fairs). And Cassie, Nicki, and Kyle are hoping their custom storage and pieces will make the space. Jerome is the only one sticking to his old guns and going for the shopping approach, which he believes is his strength.

Frank, Ju, and Cassie seem to be moving along relatively ok. Frank and Cassie don’t get along much, but they’ve been able to keep the back and forth to a relative minimum for this challenge. They’ve come up with some interesting and smart ideas for the common area, and they’re all moving through their spaces well enough considering the circumstances. Jerome’s room is just extra black. Just black everything. Just… so much black. Team 2’s kitchen area went to the back burner quickly since Kyle and Nicki went SUPER ambitious with their built ins. It’s probably the first time Kyle has been in this much trouble. He put too much emphasis on building and not really enough on designing the whole room. Plus, his time was cut when he realized that each piece needed to be sprayed with a flame retardant coat for code purposes. Nicki ran into the same problem. And then to top it off, her pieces didn’t fit together well because everything ended up being about 1/4” off. Ughhh I felt so bad watching that.

The Walkthrough: The guest judge this episode was Sophie Robinson. She came in to look for practicality in the design and a sensitivity to allow the end users to add their own creativity to the space. She and Michelle get started with Team 1 and Ju. She did a really nice job with the black and made some great moments for students to add their own touches. Both judges agreed it was a good use of storage. Frank’s room was next, and it brought a bit of a split from the judges. Sophie really enjoyed the ceiling wallpaper, but Michelle could’ve done without it since she thought it was covering too many areas. What the judges could agree on was Frank’s need for more storage in the space. Cassie’s space was next and the judges both appreciated the change in flooring. They felt that there was a feeling of things being a bit rushed, but they could see that there were sections for the user to fill the space with their own style. For their kitchen space, the different colored cabinets come together. For the judges, the flooring stole the show, but the community space didn’t connect with any of the studio spaces.

Team 2 was next, and the judges started with Jerome. Sophie thought the overall look was nice, but both designers agreed that his use of shopping resulted in some huge missed opportunities with storage and functionality. Kyle was next, and oh boy. You can tell he didn’t finish. The judges recognized his furniture design, especially the transformative pieces, but everything was still very raw and unfinished. Last up was Nicki. The zoning she created was nice, but she moved the desk away from the outlets and didn’t provide adequate storage. Her Tetris connecting storage couldn’t be finished either, so in the end it just didn’t work. The kitchen space was nice and simple. I liked that things were one color, but there wasn’t enough done compared to Team 1.

The Judging: As always, we’re at the part where we find out who stays and who goes. The judges felt that Ju delivered the best design overall, and I can’t help but agree. Frank and Cassie also had favorable designs and as a team, the three of them were safe. That left Jerome, Kyle and Nicki sitting in the couch. Kyle was just over ambitious with what he tried to accomplish in the timeframe. Nicki always has a lot of ideas, but she lacks the ability to edit them. Jerome had the toughest judging yet. When asked about the shopping by Michelle, he said it was because he chickened out. Yet earlier in his commentary he said he wanted to do it because it was what he did. Sophia didn’t let him off the hook, though, and pushed until he was able to admit that he didn’t try to push the boundaries of the design. In the end, Michelle’s message was to always serve the brief and serve the end user. It was that decision that led her to eliminate Jerome.

And with that, we are on to our top 5 designers. Like, comment and follow to stay up to date, and come back next week and we’ll see what happens in Episode 5.