From tacky to tasteful with a little tough love

On the new television show “Tacky House”, celebrity interior designer Thom Filicia promises to make over viewers’ houses, taking them from tacky to tasteful, one leopard-printed mismatched disaster at a time.

The 41-year-old is a native New Yorker based in Manhattan, who is famous for, among other things, the cult home show “Dress My Nest”.

The new show airs every weeknight on The Style Network on OSN Arabia and Filicia talked about what viewers can expect in an interview with the UK’s Press Association recently. Excerpts:

The concept of the new show:

Tacky House is a design intervention show for people with tacky houses.

The idea is that there's an informant who basically brings this person to us. It's their husband or wife or girlfriend or best friend, son or daughter.

Someone very close to them who cares a lot about them and feels that they've just gone too far and need help to kind of figure this out.

They basically tell their friend that they've nominated them for a television show called My Awesome Room and that they were chosen. They definitely think we're celebrating their design point of view.

How he tells people their houses are tacky:

It was really wrapping my head around how I was going to kindly – but with a little bit of tough love – tell these people that their houses are tacky. Which is not easy.

When we were in pre-production, the weeks before I was thinking to myself: 'Oh my God. How in the world am I going to explain this in a way that is palatable and that the person doesn't feel violated or sad?' It continues to be the most difficult thing but each episode, each person, each dynamic with the informant and so on... it changes it up a little bit. Knock on wood, so far, so good.

The most over-the-top house is…

The most challenging for me was the castle episode, because the castle itself was a little daunting. It wasn't a great castle by any stretch; it was a 1970s (castle) with a pool moat going around it in a suburban neighbourhood.

They loved it and it needed to be respected because their father built it and he's no longer alive. That was a difficult one.

Also decorating a castle of that era was not easy.

Other weird moments…

The woman who believes she's a leprechaun.

That was a difficult one as well because she lives in a very suburban neighbourhood and she wanted to feel like she lives in a little cottage in Ireland, so it was very interesting.

I was designing in the taste of a leprechaun, so I was trying to figure out what would a tasteful leprechaun live like.

Budget-friendly advice from the show for viewers:

The show really is about embracing your aesthetic. It's actually a show that's very kind-hearted in the sense that it isn't about breaking people down and making them feel bad. It's more of a 'make better' than a 'make over'.

It's about taking their point of view and their aesthetic and figuring out a way to make it work.

A lot of it is working with what people already have and then bringing in some new pieces and really kind of pulling it together.

It tells the story that they're trying to tell but it tells the story in a way that I think is more approachable and understandable, and it's more appealing, not only to hopefully the person that's living there but also to their friends and family.