Watching It, Watching Me: The Invasion of Design

[The following is an editorial column by contributor Alison Coffey and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Austinist staff. --The Editors]

It's not like I have thousands of dollars to make my home my castle, complete with beige furnishings from Room & Board and original artwork and decorative bowls filled with green apples. Even a total home by Target is kind of a struggle.

So I don't know why I torture myself with all my subscriptions to home magazines (Cottage Living, Country Living, Natural Home, Better Homes & Gardens), and marathon Bookpeople browsing sessions with Dwell and This Old House, and House Beautiful and Sunset and Martha Stewart Living and whatever else catches my eye. It only makes me long more for what I can't have. It creates envy. Envy, bad! Humility, good!

But c'mon, we live in 2006 and we love to covet. We also love to see what the neighbors have, and the people in that other neighborhood, and, in my case, how folks are living in downtown New York, rural Pennysvlania, and oceanside Costa Rica. I'm addicted to how other people choose to live. I'm fascinated with how they decorate their small spaces and their vacation homes in Palm Springs. I love to watch families with a taste for country crafts see how urban minimalists decorate their old beloved home (I can't believe they took down all my beautiful stenciling!)

In the land called cable television there is plenty to watch for folks like me. Of course, I can't say all of it is worthy and it certainly depends on one's taste, interests (I have no desire to watch people handle anything with the word driver in it), and degree of patience for people with horrible design instincts. I'll sit through an episode of House Hunters if the person is looking for bungalows in California, but not for the suburban Dallas family looking for their next McMansion. An HGTV snob? YES I AM.

My favorite shows tend to be about home acquisition (House Hunters, Moving Up, Flip that House, What You Get for the Money) or design (reDesign, Free Style, My New Home, Divine Design, and Design Rivals). I usually stick to HGTV or TLC, but have been known to venture into Fine Living and DIY. Staple Guns and fringe don't excite me, so I tend to steer clear of Christopher Lowell.

My new favorite is Design, Inc. where beautiful Canadian Sarah Richardson does to die for design for people whom I gather have a lot of money and happen to live in or near Toronto. There goes my dream of a Sarah Richardson designed home. Sarah and her entourage of fellow beautiful designers chase around antiques and high end tile for people that wear a lot of pearls and have third floors in their downtown houses.

I also heart reDesign, the show where the man with the best hair, Kenneth Brown, makes incredible rooms from bland condos that seem impossible to beautify. That Kenneth Brown is wicked talented. And as far as I'm concerned his hair could be come the next "Monica".

Should I be depressed that I spend so many hours of my life in other peoples homes and I don't even walk away with a new friend, much less leftovers of the delicious peach cobbler? All I get is an inkling to paint my bedroom yellow, frame some vintage photographs, remove a wall or two and retile the bathroom, and scour antique stores for that perfect chandelier.

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