Friday, Jun. 06, 2008

Olathe may have it's own design star

Local interior designer Jennifer Bertrand will make her TV debut Sunday on HGTV’s “Design Star.”

“I feel like years of work are finally coming together,” Bertrand said.

Show contestants have a weekly interior-design challenge. In previous seasons, decorators have been given a budget to design apartments, pet stores and auto shops. Judges eliminate a contestant each week. Viewers choose a winner, who becomes the host of a new HGTV show.

“It’s like a ‘Survivor’ of design,” Bertrand said.

This season takes place in Nashville. Bertrand lived there with the other contestants.

“We each bring something to the table,” she said.

Bertrand said she grew up with a passion for design. She lived on Army bases, and much of her inspiration now comes from having lived in Europe and having artistic parents. Her mother has artwork displayed in the Reagan Presidential Library. Her father is the director of the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art.

Bertrand was one of 38 who flew to Tennessee, and she made the final cut.

“It’s so much harder than I thought it was when I’d watch it on TV in my pjs,” Bertrand said. “I’m such a snob about what I like, but we had such constraints on what we could do it stressed me out.”

Bertrand and her husband, Christopher, began Bertrand Designs five years ago. She was an art teacher, and he taught social studies. They provide artwork, murals, design cabinet work and faux finishes.

“We’re like yin and yang,” Jennifer Bertrand said. “He’s the calm, and I’m the storm.”

If she wins, Bertrand said she envisions her show as a one-stop lesson in design — one where viewers can observe decorating as well as learn.

The show debuts at 8 p.m. Sunday.

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