Tyler Wisler joins Mark & Theresa at the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show to talk New Orleans, HGTV Design Star, and Housing Works.
Mark: This is MyFixitUpLife and we are inside the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show, KBIS for those in the know.
Theresa: Those in the know it’s KBIS and on twitter it’s @KBIS2013.
Mark: This is my wife Theresa.
Theresa: Yes, and this is my husband Mark. We spend all day together every day.
Mark: We do, to the point where we know each other so well we’ve gone around full circle to the point where we don’t know each other at all and actually introduce ourselves.
Theresa: Really?
Mark: Well, that might be stretching it a hair.
Theresa: We do spend so much time together so it’s nice to come to a huge convention center like this, the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show, which is the largest trade show for the kitchen and bath professionals in the world and to have so many people be around so we’re not alone, like in our office or on a job site or wherever we are.
Mark: Sometimes it does.
Theresa: We need a lot of people intervene with us.
Mark: It does get a little lonely designing, building, building a radio show, and maybe what we should do instead of elocute, which we do so well.
Theresa: Is talk to our guest.
Mark: Hold on I need to stand up for that. Is talk to our guest who may know, in fact, more than we do.
Theresa: Who’s not only a design star he’s a taste maker as well.
Mark: Tyler Wisler, I hope I have that right.
Tyler: Wisler.
Mark: God, Williams start the show again.
Theresa: I think his name is actually Wisler but he just wants to make you feel bad.
Tyler: Pretty much.
Theresa: Yeah, that’s good.
Mark: Now I don’t even know what to call you Bill.
Theresa: I am really disappointed right now because we follow you on twitter and it’s @NYDesignGuy and I saw that you tweeted out that there is a billboard of Zatarain’s and you people really eat that here in New Orleans.
Tyler: Do people in New Orleans really eat Zatarain’s? It just seems.
Mark: It’s redundant.
Theresa: I saw a billboard and I took a picture over my phone, I don’t have it on me, I was going to show it to you that I was following you and I was thinking of you as I was coming into New Orleans today.
Tyler: It’s weird. I don’t know. It’s a weird thing.
Mark: Either it’s a fake and nobody here eats it and they’re just selling the whole mojo with jazz guy and the whole routine or they need to pick up their market share.
Theresa: Probably. I don’t know but I think it’s good product placement because we’re thinking about that while we’re here in New Orleans and I’m excited to meet you.
Tyler: Same here. Same here guys, thank you.
Theresa: I want to know all about the furniture and everything you’re doing at Open Sky. What are you doing and what is a taste maker?
Mark: And can be one?
Theresa: Yes, what are the qualifications for a taste maker?
Tyler: Can I be one too?
Mark: When do I start?
Theresa: How do you apply for that job?
Mark: Hello, you don’t know me, when do I start?
Tyler: Open Sky actually approached me which was really awesome. They are an online retailer along the lines of fab.com, Joss & Main, One King’s Lane, but they went with the premise of getting celebrities together and taste makers together to basically call our favorite things and just sell them for you to enjoy. We’re not married to any brand of any sort. It’s if I love this water, I want you to know about this water. It’s almost like Oprah’s favorite things. I want you to know about this stuff and I want you to be a part of my life and my lifestyle and what makes me happy. That’s basically what Open Sky is all about. It’s this Facebook shopping experience in a boutique-type environment.
Mark: Are there so many things that you couldn’t even start to mention a few that have really caught your eye and made you happy or do you have smaller collections that we can get our heads around here?
Tyler: There are a lot of small collections. One of the things that I found a few months back at the New York Gift Show was a Plexiglas frame from Wexel Art and it was genius. It’s basically a piece of Plexiglas that hangs on the wall as a frame but it’s interchangeable. The art can be hung with magnets. It’s perfect for a kids room and I know you guys have kids.
Theresa: Okay, I’m with you on this.
Tyler: It is genius.
Mark: When she leans back that means she’s more interested.
Theresa: Now I really want to know more about it. It’s with magnets, it’s Plexiglas and you can change out?
Tyler: Plexiglas, magnets on the four corners; makes your art, your photos, interchangeable so there’s a constant evolution of your space which is what everybody wants. Nobody wants to be in stale environment all the time and it makes your kids feel good to know that the newest they created is up there for display, instead of just putting magnet on the fridge, this is a piece of art.
Theresa: We have a four-year-old and there is something that comes home every day and it’s multiple things that he creates in preschool every day, so we would have to basically wallpaper his whole room or the whole living room with these to interchange them out because of all the stuff that you get from school that they make and everything is.
Tyler: I’ve got a seven-year-old, I can relate.
Theresa: Oh my goodness gracious.
Mark: What model number? B or G? No one understands what to do with that question.
Tyler: B.
Mark: B.
Theresa: We have a B. He has a B.
Mark: He has a B. Model number B7.
Theresa: B7, yeah it’s like Bingo or something. That’s insane how you.
Mark: That’s awesome, so you get the actual square acre of forest coming home from school all the time.
Tyler: It is crazy. It’s a small phone book of a random assortment of stuff and it’s awesome. You don’t want to throw it away. Do you throw this stuff away? I’ve got piles and piles of my kid’s stuff in his closet that it’s pointless.
Mark: Basically it’s a daily situation where I sift through and there’s some stuff you don’t need because there’s the two point font with a list of every event in the world and then you get that drawing of the shamrock or the Easter bunny or whatever those things are that come home and you’re like, this is a never again thing, except there’s 200 more coming.
Theresa: I do go through them when they come home and I put some in the recycling and I keep them but then I always ask our four-year-old, Jack, what is this that you made? This is beautiful. Then he’ll tell me the story of it and it’s like a line across the paper and I’m like the story was so good I can’t throw this piece.
Tyler: Because he’s proud of it, he did it.
Theresa: With the crayon line on it because it’s a ship that’s going through the sea and there’s pirates. It’s not on the paper, it’s all in his imagination.
Tyler: Right up in there.
Theresa: He sells me on it. He’s a good salesman.
Mark: As much as this is us short of pulling out our wallets and showing each other pictures of our children, I’m sure you love you children but you don’t love our children we get that.
Theresa: They do they love our children. I think as a mother, everyone loves my kids.
Mark: Tyler was part of … that’s where people go wrong and they pull out the thing with all the pictures and you’re like look man I don’t care about these pictures.
Theresa: I want to know what you’re curating, what you’re looking around here at the Kitchen and Bath Show, have you seen anything that has sort of, you ‘ve had sort of a love affair with already?
Tyler: It’s tough. I haven’t really had a chance to walk the show yet. We’ve been over at the KBIS design studio launching some new software, showing design development with this new technology that’s out there, so I’ve been a little wrapped up with that so I’m really excited to get walking around and see what new stuff is out there.
Theresa: What’s the new software?
Tyler: It is like an iPhone that’s been jacked up on a touchscreen TV but it’s very interactive. As a designer, to use this software and show a client very visually what’s going on and then to have the capability of in that conversation maybe dialing up your husband or wife or contractor to jump in on the conversation and to actually have them see what you guys are looking at on the screen at the same to make decisions happen or, if there’s a problem on the construction site where you need visual.
Mark: Yes, it doesn’t fit. I got to see this.
Tyler: You need a visual and then they need to see it on their side..
Theresa: We can’t get that tile in a special order, we need to get a different tile and is this one or this one going to work.
Tyler: Look at these options, look at your computer screen, see what works and it becomes very interactive and that’s the amazing wonderful thing about this.
Mark: Among multiple parties.
Tyler: Among multiple parties.
Mark: I dig that. Speaking of parties, a segway, you’re a working designer, you do designs, you’re in people’s houses, you’re in your office, you got all your stuff going and then boom you’re on HGTV Design Star.
Tyler: Yeah, kind of crazy.
Mark: Big transition, small transition, totally different, a little bit the same, all of the above?
Tyler: No, it’s a lot of crazy.
Mark: Cool.
Tyler: It’s a lot of crazy up in there. They can probably hear me from the HGTV booth.
Theresa: How is it different for from working with clients to working with the crazy schedule of production and TV and the whole thing?
Tyler: There’s a lot of stuff that you don’t actually see when you’re doing a reality competition series and the restraint that you have and the amount of time that you really have to do a project. When they say three days, I mean three days doesn’t mean three 24-hour days. It could mean an eight-hour day, a five-hour day and then a two-hour day and that’s three days but they’re going to tell you it’s three days.
Theresa: A two-hour day, that would really.
Mark: But I’m not ready.
Theresa: Sad face your.
Mark: But, I’m still not ready.
Tyler: You don’t know how many times everybody just wanted to breakdown and cry but you’re in go mode, you have no choice. The cameras are on you, you need to produce something.
Mark: How big or small of a challenge is it to be away from the place and the tools you use to actually design every day. Do you not know where the pencil sharpener is and that takes 15 minutes and you’re struggling?
Tyler: The entire show is a struggle and that’s what it’s about. It’s about how quickly you can adapt and figure things out. For example, on our kitchen challenge, we actually never got any of the thin set for any of our tiles so they’re like work it out. And we’re like, what do you mean work it out? So we are siliconing and calking stuff up, because basically you’re building a set when you build.
Theresa: Chewing gum to thicken it up, anything you could.
Tyler: Whatever you can do.
Theresa: Peanut Butter.
Tyler: If we had peanut butter.
Mark: This point of MyFixitUpLife is brought to you by Mentos. Mentos is the fresh thicker.
Theresa: Oh my goodness, that is so fantastic.
Mark: You used what you had on hand.
Tyler: You use what you have on hand and you make it work.
Mark: To create the look. You know I get exactly where you’re going with that.
Theresa: Did that push you to beyond your comfort zone and make you innovate in ways that made it better.
Tyler: Everything is pushing you beyond your comfort zone. That’s the whole point of the show is to really push the boundaries of what you think is possible. I think the greatest challenge to showcase that was white room challenge. For our season, they just sent us to a grocery supply store and said, here’s $1,000 go buy stuff and install it, make a room. So, I bought 500 bottles of water and I made a chaise and you got to do what you got to do. Would I do that normally? No.
Mark: Did that chair float? Did you take that chair down the Mississippi to get here?
Theresa: That’s at your house right? You have that installation at your home?
Tyler: No, actually production drank the rest of it during the filming of it all.
Theresa: Oh that’s fantastic. What are you working on right now? What did you leave in your normal life to come all the way to New Orleans to the Kitchen and Bath Show?
Tyler: Right now I’m actually in the midst of doing a charity event next week, which I’m really proud to be a part of. It’s the second year that I’ve been a part of it. Ninth year the charity event’s actually going on. It’s through Housing Works in New York City. It’s an organization that helps people living with HIV and AIDS and homelessness. They actually build new buildings. They rehabilitate buildings. They get these people in their comfortable homes because part of the healing process is to have a place to live and call home.
They actually outfit these homes beautifully and they use the help of designers. This particular event, they asked 50 designers from around everywhere to come in, design vignettes that are donation-based, so we call on our favorite vendors and say give us what you can, and everything is sold for at least 50 percent off. These are brand new items, so if I get a $5,000 sofa the maximum that it will sell for is $2,500. All the proceeds then go back into Housing Works.
Last year we reached just under $1,000,000 in that one event, so it’s an amazing thing.
Mark: Is that housingworks.org?
Tyler: Housingworks.org I believe, yes. Design on a dime.
Theresa: Wow, that is amazing. Fifty designers you say?
Tyler: It’s about 50 designers every year and it just keeps bigger and bigger and the press just gets better and better.
Mark: Where does it take place?
Tyler: The Metropolitan Pavilion on 18th Street in Manhattan. This year’s chairs are Genevieve Gorder from HGTV, Sabrina Soto from HGTV, Lara Spencer from HGTV.
Mark: Do they know about design at all?
Tyler: No.
Mark: Okay, good so you’ve rookie panel.
Theresa: I’m glad you’re there though to teach them because that will be really good. Fifty designers that must be crazy and then you’re all working there together.
Tyler: Simultaneously trying to install within a day’s time just so this thing can happen, so people can come in and shred it apart because literally it’s kind of cash and carry for our situation.
Mark: Well we’re going to cash and carry ourselves into a break, so please check out Tyler Wisler at TylerWislerHome.com, @NYdesignguy on twitter, Facebook. Check out his Design Star episodes on HGTV and check us out. We’ll be back with more from the Kitchen and Bath Show with more of MyFixitUpLife.
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