Reprinted with permission from www.redesignrevolution.com

We’re down to four designers—Tiffany, Anne, Brooks, and Jeribai. David Bromstad tells the designers that their next camera challenge will be huge. They are going on The Talk, where they will perform a segment with Julie Chen and Sheryl Underwood where they teach the hosts and viewers an inventive and unconventional design tip. And, their main design challenge is also huge because the designers have three days to make over the inside of stripped down buses. They can turn the buses into any kind of space at all and are encouraged not to play it safe.

Tiffany thinks school bus…kids…fairy tales…Alice In Wonderland…a crazy rendition of the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Anne used to design luxury motor coaches, so she creates an elegant living space and bedroom space, completely ignoring the instructions to not play it safe. Brooks is talking about a time traveler’s lounge for aliens. Jeribai imagines the ultimate man cave in the form of a boxer’s lounge.

The Camera Challenge is on live television, so there’s lots of potential for disaster. Tiffany goes first. She takes a vintage frame and turns it into a white board that you can write on. Kind of boring, but she did it with panache. Jeribai is next. He show the hosts how to transform a dresser into a kitchen island….which is a nice idea but a dresser is the wrong height for a kitchen island. But the audience loves him. Anne is nervous and it shows. She demonstrates how to make a pet bed out of an end table. The audience eats it up, but honestly, the pet bed looks stupid. Finally, Brooks. He turns a vintage suitcase into a medicine cabinet in a crazy manic way. He says “curiosities” about a thousand times, dropping things on the floor….he is being Brooks.

When the designers return to their buses, Tiffany finds hers painted in aqua paint, and Jeribai sees wooden floors and wood paneling. Brooks tries to describe a three dimensional eggshell lounge to the carpenter, and it’s a huge risk because what on earth is he doing? When David visits Anne’s bus, she explains her lounge and bedroom glamour concept. He says that she has played it very safe, so she needs to turn it up a notch. David tells Tiffany that dark and pretty is hard to achieve, but she should go for it while still making sure it reads as her design. David also cautions Jeribai about the drapery he is planning. Since the drapes will be so prominent, they need to be sewn perfectly, which is not Jeribai’s forte. Sadly, they look awful.

With ninety minutes left, Tiffany brings foliage into her space, Brooks styles his space with “curiosities” that make the viewer unclear what decade they are standing in, Anne is frantically putting sheets on her bed, and Jeribai is…something. There’s a lot of running and carrying and polishing.

The panel is super excited to step inside of the buses. Jeribai’s bus is first.

It looks pretty slick and cool except for those drapes which the panel calls horrible.

Anne’s bus is next, and it looks…crowded?

The furniture is waaay too big. The panel loves it, but Genevieve points out that they’ve seen this style from her before and she failed to accessorize.

Brooks’s bus gets a lot of “wows” from the panel. The crazy three dimensional back wall is called incredible.

Tiffany’s bus is immediately recognizable as Alice In Wonderland, and the panel responds well to it overall. But, the back wall is unfinished and it shows.

It’s time for the designers to hear what the panel thought about their spaces and Camera Challenges. Jeribai gets high marks for his Camera Challenge and his bus. The only criticism he received was for the accessories—candlesticks without candles, and drapes that had no business in a man cave. Anne’s Camera Challenge did not go as well. Her fear came through on stage, with her shoulders hunched over and her failure to pull a funny moment out of the host’s ineptitude. Her bus is better, but Genevieve notes that everything Anne does is pretty, and she wants to see more. Also, her furniture was too close together. The panel felt that Tiffany held her own in the Camera Challenge, and they loved her bus. Vern called it a bus to crazy town, and he wanted to get on and never get off. But, the back of her bus seemed like leftover space. Brooks’s Camera Challenge was a bomb, but his bus makeover was a hit.

The panel decides that Tiffany had the most impressive showing with her Alice In Wonderland bus. Jeribai will also be moving forward in the competition. So the choice is between vanilla bean (Anne) and banana split with a wasabi sauce (Brooks), and the panel goes with Brooks because the design world does not need another pretty room.

Then, the panel tells the designers that they are so impressed with each one of them that all three will be going to the finale.

Next week is the season finale in Palm Springs, where the designers will makeover luxury hotel suites to determine who is the next HGTV Star.