Could You Be the Next Design Star on HGTV?

We just heard from a casting associate for Design Star, HGTV's top-rated reality competition series. They're currently casting for Season 7 (yikes!) and we're helping them spread the word that they're holding an open casting call in NYC on Monday, October 3.

Are you or someone you know interested in becoming the next Design Star? Here's what they're looking for:

WHO: Passionate, charismatic individuals who are extremely creative and have major design abilities (interior designers, architects, contractors, artists, and other design experts)

WHEN: Monday, October 3 from 9am to 1pm

WHERE: Sutton Place - 1015 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10022

HOW: For more information, visit the Casting Page for Design Star.

As lead curriculum developer for Sheffield School, I'm always being contacted about cool interior design opportunities like this one from HGTV. If you'd like to know more about the world of design, I encourage you to explore the Sheffield School, New York, NY. Sheffield began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

• Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.
• Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.

Interior Design's Guilty Pleasure: Flipping Out

It's been great fun for the past four seasons of Bravo TV's Flipping Out to see star designer Jeff Lewis morph his business with the present economy. He was all about flipping houses ("flipping out" refers both to Jeff's real estate transactions ... and his paranoid and OCD mood swings), but that changed as the reality series progressed into a more full-fledged design business. According to his former assistant and now COO, Jenni Pulos, new season five of the show will see Jeff's business expand beyond residential to take in another restaurant and perhaps a hotel. Watch our featured video below, an interview with Jenni, and see the decorating trends she's noticing from the front lines of interior design. Okay, this is one of my big TV guilty pleasures, along with much of the HGTV lineup. I love Flipping Out for the hysterical Zoila Chavez, Jeff's live-in maid. Do you love watching them, too?

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HGTV Dreaming Green

HGTV 2011 green homeThose of you who dream of living in an eco-friendly home and easing your impact on planet earth, HGTV has the perfect house for you. This year's house giveaway is a green home located in Denver, Colorado. The city's vistas of endless blue sky and snow-topped mountains provide a fitting backdrop for the environmentally-conscious new construction. 

Some of the green features is a roof lined with photo-voltaic panels that provide 75% of the house's energy and exterior walls wrapped in recycled-cellulose insulation, preventing heat loss. The surrounding gardens also adopted green practices - using drip-irrigation method of watering the plants - water is targeted at the roots rather than the atmosphere. Sensors also shut off the system during rainy weather. 

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