- This is so comfortable! - We're gonna write a song
about how you need to simplify your life.
- See, this shouldn't be here.
It's gonna take you a week of labor.
- Okay, I don't know what he's talking about.
If I saw all this crazy cat lady stuff,
I would get outta here.
♪ Define you life today on a dime ♪
- I'm scared.
(upbeat music)
- Hi everybody, I'm Merle, and this is my apartment.
I have an interior designer
and I have a minimalist designer.
I'm going to have them make over my apartment.
I have a vision for this place
but I don't know exactly how to fine tune that vision
into something that be may be more, let's just say clean.
I'm really excited,
I'm going to not to take this personally.
I feel like we should just get started.
Let's do this thing.
- Hi, I'm Helene Cornell, I'm a designer.
My style is very minimal and clean and simple.
- Hi, I'm David Rios, and I'm a designer.
I've been designing for 22 years now.
My style is, I would say,
a mixture between gaudy meets simplicity.
- I think when you come home it should be relaxing,
it should be tranquil, you shouldn't have
a lot of things distracting you from your alone quiet time.
- I don't want to take away. I want to simplify it
but keep everything that's currently there.
- My apartment is very much like a jungle.
I love plants, some people might say I have a problem.
Whatever.
I try to make my apartment
an amalgamation of all my experiences.
I want to have, like, unique things
that other people don't have
and things that are gonna, when I look at them
are going to remind me of a happy time
or of a person that I love.
- Love that, love that.
- I am so exited to Merle's apartment
really clean and simple and organized.
- I really want her to fall in love with her own items
that she has currently in her home.
I'm excited.
(inquisitive music playing)
- Alright here we are.
- Oh, wow.
This is so cute.
- Thank you.
- Okay, yeah.
- It's great light.
- [David] Walking into Merle's apartment
I was kinda congested,
a little bit suffocated in a certain way.
But as I started looking at things,
it really became very simplistic.
- I really like Merle's apartment
because she has an amazing aesthetic.
She obviously has done a lot of traveling,
she's very worldly and I love that personality trait of her.
There's just a lot going on.
Do we really need all of it?
- I'm really nervous right now.
This is so personal,
I didn't anticipate how personal this would be.
I don't think I thought all the way through
just how vulnerable it is to invite the world
into your apartment and, not only,
into your apartment, but to have your apartment
picked apart by two professionals.
- There's a lot of knick knacks.
- Yeah.
- And I want to talk about which ones
mean the most to you and how we can
- I can probably get rid of that
- That's a little creepy.
I don't know if you're trying to run some game
and have guys over, but I would hit the door
if I saw all this crazy cat lady stuff
I would get out of here.
- Oh my God.
It's just hard to hear your place get attacked.
It's hard to hear things that you love
and the apartment you love get destroyed and ripped apart.
It's not an easy thing but you know what,
change is painful but change is necessary.
- I feel like this space we're standing in right here
is just a lot of open space.
Is there something better I should be doing with this?
- Yes!
My eye goes to that little desk right there
that belongs here with a cute little chair.
This becomes a whole nother area for your writing.
- Okay.
- So cute!
- I disagree because when you're writing,
you want to be inspired, you want to look out the window.
I say leave the desk where it is.
- I don't even use, I love this,
I know there is nothing in this,
I was intending to fill it with alcohol,
to make it look like a classy bar, but I don't really want
to encourage myself to drink that much.
- [David] And you can always take away the door
and it's really going to accent
whatever you put inside of it.
- I'm scared to ask,
but what do you guys think of this chair?
Are you going to make me get rid of this chair?
- You're going to hate me but I love it!
You know why I love it?
It is so comfy!
See this shouldn't be here!
That's why that should not be there, but I love the color.
- [Helene] It is what it is.
I don't think you should get rid of it
cause your not really at the point
where you're going to be buying all new stuff.
I think we can make it work cohesively
if we add a throw pillow that matches the couch
and kinda, we're going to blend it all together.
I don't love it, I think it's a little busy
and crazy but whatever girl.
- It is busy.
So am I.
(laughter)
- I would ditch these weird blinds
and only do one set of drapes,
and I think it's going to give drama,
it's going to give color and it's going to tie in,
so maybe we do a pure white or a yellow
or maybe even a fun orange and that's our pop of color.
- Yeah, I agree with you that we need to do
some drapes just for privacy
and it's really going to help ground the whole room
and then I want to get rid of all this stuff
and put it in the hutch behind us.
- And me, my vision goes to that piece right there,
which is gorgeous, right underneath your TV
and we'll simplify with, maybe, a couple of books
and maybe just one plant.
And just shifting things.
- I disagree with you because I know that she said
she really wanted a space to be creative and for writing.
That desk is really cool, but how are you going
to write when it's covered with plants?
- True.
- So this is my half-kitchen, half-living room, dining area
that I don't use as a dining area.
Cause I'm always like, I don't think I have enough space.
I'm worried that if I had a table here
it would be too bulky.
And I don't have people over that often.
- For me, it's back to shifting again.
You want to have the elements of being able to entertain.
So for me it is, how can we entertain
and at least have three people sitting comfortably?
This table right here, believe it or not.
Plastic or not.
I would bump this against the wall
and I would put a nice, very simple,
maybe just a white linen or something that's really,
my focal point would be the accent chairs here.
- Well, alright I'm curious what you think, too.
- I love the couch but I think there's too many patterns.
It's a little too busy, and I want you to be focused
and I want you to be relaxed, and when you come home,
you just take a deep breath and exhale.
- Okay.
So the kitchen, what are your thoughts?
- What I love about it, my first eye
goes to it being all-white and when you bring in elements
of your greenery, which you have a ton of them,
bring them in it's just going to bring
that much more of like, I'm here to cook.
Now question, how often do you use this toaster?
Be honest!
- [Helene] Yeah, that needs to go.
- Not often enough.
- [Helene] Get rid of it! - Get rid of it right?
We will find and we will create spaces for you
to be able to put this away and then the days
that you do use it, bring it out.
I want to walk in here and have nothing on your countertop.
Maybe a plant over here, some plants over here,
re-focalizing this over here.
That's the drama.
- What I want to do, I want to paint
this a really cool accent color, a pop of color.
And then use that same color
for these little knobs and accessories, not expensive.
A can of paint you can get
from a department store for, whatever, $15.
One thing you might want to consider,
I don't know how long you're going to be here for,
but it would be really cool to paint the cabinets.
- I've never painted anything in an apartment.
- [Helene] It's so easy to do.
- Is it?
I'm intimidated.
- [Helene] No, it's fun!
- [David] You'll be here with your paint brush,
like I painted and for weeks.
I do love your suggestion of the accent wall.
Walking in, it's going to bring a subtle, pretty
pink, pastel, I don't know, peach.
Maybe peach will make it look cohesive with all this
but to repaint and finish this,
girl you are fine, it's an apartment!
- Oh, I'm sensing some sparks!
- I have a couple tips on the paint, too.
Habitat for Humanity is a great place to buy paint.
A lot of people don't know you can buy paint there.
- [Merle] Oh, cool.
- And they're all environmentally friendly,
and the other thing is a lot of times
when people return paint colors they don't like,
they put them on sale, for more than 50% off.
- That's a good tip.
So if you're open-minded with the color,
for some reason I feel like a nice navy blue
would compliment the couch and things like that.
But if you're open-minded, you can probably
pick something up for a quarter of the price.
- [Merle] Cool!
- But it's going to take you a week of labor.
- Okay, I don't know what he's talking about,
I am so good at painting, I could bang this out in an hour.
- [David] No way, no way.
- [Helene] Yeah, just pop an Adderall and go to town.
(laughter)
- Okay on the Adderall.
- Tell me the importance of your bedding space.
- Do you want to ever get married?
- I mean.
- See, this is so comfortable,
but I wouldn't be able to tell
because there's a lot going on and it's not white,
it's not inviting, but, God, this is nice.
- It's cozy.
- Yes!
(upbeat guitar music)
- Can we talk about this exterior lighting
that should not be here?
Babe, I love you but, no!
Hell, no, no, no, no.
- I'm happy to get rid of it.
- Yeah, it's a little too wanderlusty to me.
- Great.
- [Merle] All right y'all, let's do the bathroom.
Initial thoughts?
- My eye is going to this greenery here
this with a matte gold that matches
your lamp in the front would be beautiful.
And just simplify it.
- Cool.
- I agree, it has to be simplified. Let's get rid of this.
What I want to do is, I want to put a floating shelf
up here, with baskets so that you can
keep your linens up high and out of the way.
I just saw Merle's apartment, I love it!
There's a lot to work with.
So the three things I want to do for her is:
Simplify, get her organized,
get a lot of storage baskets for all of her clutter.
Then I want to move some things around,
and lastly, I want to graduate her
into being a grown up and get her some really nice
signature pieces that she can move with her
wherever she goes next.
And these pieces are going to have storage
so that she can hid her clutter,
which is the theme of minimalism.
- I love all the elements that she has here.
Like this little boutique thing that we got here.
The drama is already here I'm going to shift things around,
I'm going to add white bedding
and I'm going to do some fun elements of greenery,
mix with what she has here.
(upbeat music)
- So my goal for this living room
is really just repositioning, decluttering,
but not in the sense of getting rid of things,
positioning them in other places.
I love the couch, maybe a few more accent pieces
as far as throw pillows.
- I really do appreciate him wanting to make over my hutch.
I think the idea of taking the doors off
could be really cool and might actually
turn it into an entirely new piece,
and give me an opportunity to put
some of my treasured belongings on display
and maybe take them up off the floor.
- Walking into the living room.
I want to add some places for Merle to entertain.
She mentioned she wanted to have more friends over
and I noticed you have a desk, I see the desk
but not really cause there's so many plants on it.
But I know you're creative and you deserve
an awesome space to write.
So, let's clean off that desk and make it a multi-use area,
where you cause it for art projects
and writing and all sorts of stuff.
- The idea of getting rid of a lot of my plants
is really unappealing to me.
That being said, I do realize
there's probably a better way to organize them.
- So, when I walked into the kitchen,
my first thought process was, who's cooking in this kitchen?
And where's the countertops?
I want to clean the countertops off
and I want to reposition it,
and I want to walk in there and have a focal point
and just reposition the pictures, cause then
that tells me this kitchen is made for this look.
- The kitchen is small
and there is not a lot of counter space.
I'm going to add some storage
so that you have even more space to put some things.
So in the kitchen there's this awesome vignette
where I want to do an accent color
and really edit down some of those pieces
that she has hanging on the wall.
- I love the idea of having an accent wall in my apartment.
I've never painted my own apartment ever before
so it just feels really adult.
- So, the bedroom, what I'm going to do is
reposition some of the items that she has there.
I'm actually going to bring in some plants,
give some life to that bedroom.
- David also super encouraged my crazy plant lady aesthetic,
it's not just an aesthetic, it's a way of life.
So, I really appreciated that.
- The bedroom just isn't private and sexy.
We need to get rid of the clutter.
I noticed there's a lamp on the floor,
What are you trying to light up girl?
I don't get it.
- I get it, nobody likes the lamp.
I'll get rid of the lamp.
- [Helene] Next to her bed is a bedside table
and it's not even a plan,
there's just things hanging all over it.
The bed is beautiful, I love that, but what can we do
to make sure it's really squishy and awesome,
so that she can jump right in there?
- Bathroom area?
I really want to give it life.
I want to lighten it up a bit more, it's a little dark.
I want to add a couple of floating shelves.
Floating shelves will allow me
to bring in the greenery, and it will also give me an area
to accent it with maybe some pictures
and just soften it with some white towels.
- In the bathroom there's just a lot of clutter
and a lot of products.
Let's create some storage so that you can keep
all of those products hidden.
(exhales)
- Okay, this is really tough
because David is willing to work with what I have
and he's exited about the patterns I've chosen
and he's exited about the crazy plant lady thing
I've got going on.
He's also not making as many drastic changes.
He's really just doing a larger reorganizing
of the stuff that I already have.
It might be a more comfortable change.
It seems like David's makeover is going to be less painful.
Then we have Helene's.
Helene's is going to be drastically different,
she's trying to totally upheave
a lot of what I've got going on and really make, I mean,
a true, true, true drastic makeover.
I don't know if it's like a part of life I'm in or a phase
I'm in, but I really am attracted to a radical change.
I think, in order to really notice a huge difference,
possibly trying something entirely out of my comfort zone
might actually be what I need to do.
Okay.
So, Helene, I have done a lot of thinking,
I looked at both the renderings and I've decided
to go with your design.
- Oh my God, that's awesome!
Thank you.
- No, thank you!
You put so much thought
and time and effort into it and it shows.
I am overwhelmed with the amount of change,
however, I think maybe with your help,
I could possibly bring it to life and make it a reality.
- Yeah.
- Is that something you would be interested in?
- I would love to help you out, girl!
It's been so fun getting to know you
and I want to make your place awesome
and I would love to do that for you.
- Yay! Okay, you guys, let us know if you want to see us
follow up with this and actually make this project happen.
We've got Helene, she's going to lead me
into my personal nirvana.
(laughter)
- Well thank you, I'm excited.
- I'm in this place in my life
where I'm taking a lot of risks.
I'm kinda just going for it in every way, in any way I can.
And it's been paying off so far, so I'm going to try
to minimalize my apartment.
It's going to be so hard.
Real talk here, she's going to have
to work with me about the plants.
We're going to have to talk about that.
(upbeat music)