Vern Yip, formerly of Trading Spaces, brought the prize money to the Land O'Lakes couple who won a renovation contest.
By JAMES THORNER
Published October 23, 2004
LAND O'LAKES - Celebrity home designer Vern Yip came to Pasco County Friday toting an oversized check and a tub-load of decorating tips for a happy Land O'Lakes couple.
"Here's a big giant check for $5,000," the blue jeaned and T-shirted Yip said as Sal and Mallory Messina opened the front door of their rural home Friday morning.
"You rock, Vern," Mallory Messina said before escorting the former Trading Spaces television show star inside.
Actually, the sequence was staged and videotaped for the benefit of Moen, the faucet manufacturer that sponsored the national "Show Us Your Style" home renovation contest the Messinas won with a kitchen makeover.
A white cardboard dummy check, about a yard long, filled in for the real thing that was expected to arrive in the next couple weeks.
"We need more than that," Sal Messina joked as he examined the $5,000 figure. "A few more zeros."
"I don't think you can take this particular check to the bank," Yip retorted.
Just as important as the money were the pearls of decorating wisdom Yip strung throughout the visit.
He praised the Messinas' exhaustive kitchen overhaul that turned a country-style laminated also-ran into a sleek stainless steel, granite and marble-trimmed champion.
"I really love what you've done with this space in visually expanding it," Yip said as he scanned the "leapfrog" color greenish wall paint and marble floor.
When Mallory Messina explained how the previous owner had cabinets that hung from the ceiling over a kitchen island, Yip replied, "Oh I hate that."
Though the couple spent a fortune on the green-swirled granite counter tops, Yip suggested the investment was worth it.
"You cannot skimp on your counter top," he said. "The counter top is the work horse of the kitchen."
Sal Messina, a immigrant from Sicily, spent eight months and long hours renovating the kitchen by himself. Yip could only admire the results.
"Italians are notorious for great designs. You can't help it. It's in your genes," he told Messina.
Offering advice to other Floridians, Yip urged homeowners not to pigeonhole themselves with a stereotypical tropical or Mediterranean look but to decorate with an eye toward personal happiness.
Start by flipping through books and magazines and noting what colors and styles you gravitate to, Yip advised. Do you like lots of natural light? Does certain furniture turn you on?
"Brand new homes are these blank beige boxes," Yip said. "People need to come in and really inject them with some life."
Yip's life seems to be one constantly in motion. He has left Trading Spaces and is about to start a new weekly reality show for NBC Television in February.
Home Intervention will feature Yip making over not just one room as he did on Trading Spaces, but an entire house, both inside and out. His book Designing Spaces comes out in April.
The Messinas got to keep Yip for about three hours Friday. A luncheon spread at the house off Wilson Road included a cake decorated to say, "Congratulations from Moen & Vern."
But most of the time was eaten up with a two-hour consultation in which Yip dispensed free advice about renovating the Messinas' master bedroom and bath.
Mallory Messina posed for photographs with Yip. She collected her favorite TV designer's autograph. And, before long, she could have the most professionally decorated home on her street.
