Interview: Genevieve Gorder dishes about Design on a Dime, color and running

Genevieve Gorder dishes to Mark & Theresa about Design on a Dime, why she still has a job, and getting off the couch and running.

Mark:              You are inside MyFixitUpLife.  We are painted with bright, broad smiles.

Theresa:          We are.

Mark:              We are in New York City.

Theresa:          Yes, we are.

Mark:              The Housing Works Design on a Dime Event.

Theresa:          Yes, and we’re in the Valspar booth that was designed by Genevieve Gorder who is sitting with us and who is just glowing.

Genevieve:     Well, after that song, that’s like my childhood.  I’m from Minneapolis.  This is like my church

Mark:              Actually, Tim Williams is the artist formerly known as Prince.

Genevieve:     Oh, really?  I used to work for Prince.  You are a lot lighter.

Tim:                 Well, I got taller over time.

Theresa:          He’s been inside a lot, so he’s lost some coloring a little bit.

Genevieve:     The curl in your hair has disappeared.

Theresa:          You might know Genevieve from HGTV, Design Star judge from a long time ago, Trading Spaces, from all kinds of projects and everything and Valspar.  You’re a spokesperson for them.

Genevieve:     I am, and I’ve worked with Valspar for the last couple years.  I mean it’s just a natural combination of paint and design and color.  It’s the most powerful tool we have, so it’s a really fun partner to have because we get to do these amazing events.  Design on a Dime is one of the biggest New York design events of the year.  It’s like summer camp for us.  All the designers are here.

Theresa:          I’m so excited because we just learned about it from Tyler.

Mark:              Wisler.

Theresa:          Yes.  We were at the kitchen and bath show last week.  He was telling us about this event.  Last year, Design on a Dime raised more than $850,000 and has raised more than 5 million dollars since 2005 for people that are battling HIV, AIDS, and homelessness.

Genevieve:     In New York City.  It’s an incredible organization that started in the last 20 years.  There’s a Housing Works in every neighborhood in this city.  As a New Yorker, it hits home really quickly because we pass it every day.  It is such a beautiful organization with such a grass roots startup and that design has the power to give is a wonderful combination of super powers, and there are so many beautiful things and people here tonight.  We’re selling so many things that are worth a lot more than the price tag, and it all goes to such a great cause.  A hundred percent of the proceeds go to fighting HIV and AIDS and people in the homeless community in New York City.  So you feel great, and you can buy with wild abandon, write it all off, and know that you’re giving to a really good cause.

Theresa:          It really does feel good when you can get a good deal and help people all at the same time.

Genevieve:     Don’t you wish grocery shopping was like this?

Theresa:          I do.  I would pay double grocery shopping if I knew that it was helping people that really, really need the help too.  I want to ask you about your daughter.  You are a spokesperson for a paint company.  Does she want to change the color of her room every day?

Genevieve:     Well, I don’t know how old your kids are.  My daughter is five, so we are stuck and have been in this place for the last couple years of pinkdom.  It is pinky pink, pinkety pink, pink, pink.  She knows the name of every exotic color on the palate because she’s grown up with me, so she can say chartreuse.  She can say, “A slight blush with fuchsia on the side,” but pink is her choice from the radiator to the quilt to the wall color.  I have to keep telling her pink needs friends.  Who can be friends with pink?  Pink will get lonely without gray and yellow and white.  It’s starting to click.

Theresa:          We have an 11-year-old, and her room is still pink, so much so that I have sheers that are magenta color so then the light comes through, if it’s not pink, the whole room is like a pink glow.

Genevieve:     Brothel.

Mark:              Please don’t say that.

Theresa:          Kind of like a brothel, but please don’t say that in front of her father.

Genevieve:     I’m just saying.

Mark:              Yeah, Genevieve, that’s just what it’s like.  That’s awesome.  It’s funny.  We’re leaving now.

Genevieve:     You did it.  I didn’t do it.

Mark:              I’ve got to light off a paint bomb in there.

Genevieve:     You know what?  She’s at the perfect age.  She’s tween.  She’s going to want to switch over one day, and it will be with such urgency, and she’ll want the loft bedroom, teenage everything.  The pink will be abolished.  It will be a completely imprisoned color for the next five to six years.  That’s how it works with girls every single time.

Mark:              I’m looking forward to that.  I’m married to Theresa, so I really don’t have any design questions myself because they’re pre-answered because she’s a designer.

Theresa:          And we’re married, so I’m always right.

Mark:              Oh, there’s that.

Genevieve:     That’s why you’re still married.

Mark:             Yeah

Theresa:        He just accepts the fact that I’m always right

Mark:          Maybe you and I can talk later

Genevieve:     Do you want to do a separate interview?

Mark:              Do you want to stay a while?

Genevieve:      You got any more Prince songs?

Mark:              When grownups are choosing colors, especially multiple colors for a room, tips to get it right, especially a multicolored theme.  They want something bright and bold.  How do they take a chance and make it happen?

Genevieve:     Here’s the deal.  Every single space is a multitude of colors.  You have to create balance.  You have your highlights, your lowlights, just like when we do our hair.  You have your neutrals.

Mark:              Yeah.  Hey, I know.

Genevieve:     Right.  You have all your frosted tips.

Mark:              What’s your frosted tip?  I’ve got to go to the ice cream man outside and get some frosted tips.  I think that’s food.

Genevieve:     If you have a well-balanced palette, it’s just like a meal.  It feels complete.  You feel satiated.  You feel like you’re in a room that’s done.  When you’re choosing that first color, it’s usually the boldest one, and then everyone goes to beige because they get scared.  They want the blue, or they want the pink, or they want that bright yellow, but they’re like, “Oh, I don’t know if I could live with it every day.  I’ll go for beige.”  Then I am called over because it’s all beige, and they don’t know what to do, and they’re stuck, and they’re paralyzed.  What Valspar is doing right now is a beautiful safety net for everybody who is scared of color, which I would say is 99.9% of our country.  This is why I still have a job.  In that, pick the bold color.  Pick the color your gut is telling you.  Pick the color you think you love.  If you change your mind, you can get a free gallon of paint on Valspar.  They’ll replace it for you.  It’s called Love Your Color Guarantee.  Now until October 7th, if you make a decision and your heart changes, your mind changes, you think it’s ugly, they will replace it for you on them, which I think is a beautiful way to take the fear out of choosing color.  I would say this is the most fearful process of them all when it comes to them all is color.

Theresa:          I’ve never heard of a paint company doing that before.

Genevieve:     No, neither have I.  That’s why we’re friends.

Mark:              I’ve been to the return aisle and seen buckets of paint that they will not take back.

Genevieve:     I buy those buckets.

Mark:              Do you really?

Genevieve:     Because they’re half off.

Theresa:          Because they’re good.  Yeah.  Why not?

Genevieve:     I’m not scared either.

Theresa:          You embrace color because I see a sewing table behind you that is similar to one that we have at our house.

Mark:              Very similar, and the machine is similar too.

Theresa:          It’s pink.

Genevieve:     It’s bright pink.

Theresa:          It’s bright pink.

Genevieve:     Well, what I do every year with Valspar and Housing Works is all of this furniture that you see is from Housing Works, so it’s all re-purposed with Valspar’s paint. We’re giving it new skin, new life, new energy.  This is will be bought, I promise you, within 10 minutes of this show opening.  Every year it is gone.

Theresa:          So if I want anything, I need to get it now?

Genevieve:     I might be able to cut you a deal.

Mark:              I was going to ask you a question that says none of this looks new right off the show.  It all looks antique, but you painted it.

Genevieve:     We did, and everyone gets scared to paint old things or wood things because you often times that, “It’s wood.  That’s sacrilegious,” or it’s brick.  It’s the same thing about craftsmanship…

Theresa:          He says that a lot.

Mark:              Sometimes.

Genevieve:     Men say that a lot more, which I get it.  I get it.  When it is an incredible piece of carpentry, when it is an incredible wood like a mahogany or a beautiful walnut or something exotic, you don’t touch it.  Ninety-nine percent of the time, just like everyone is picking beige, the wood is not that good.  The brick is not that great.  Color, in the end, all of these things became so much more valuable just with the addition of bold color.  This clock, for example, costs $60 in Housing Works.  With the addition of a layer of paint, I can sell it for 300 or 250.  It really is just stepping out with a little color.

Mark:             I’m just going to start painting myself.

Theresa:          That’s what I was thinking, you’re going to go home and paint yourself to make yourself more valuable.

Genevieve:     I got the paint.

Theresa:          You could be a rainbow.

Genevieve:     You could be this beautiful pink man in my booth.  Maybe I could sell even more and crank up the prices.

Theresa:          The silver men are over rated, though.

Mark:              Do you have any red, though?  Why do I have to be pink?

Theresa:          Because there’s the Blue Man Group.  You can’t do that.  You can’t do the silver guy because you see him all the time.  You have to pick a different color.

Mark:              Okay.  What’s wrong with red?

Genevieve:     Fine.  I’ll take red.  It’s a little boring.

Theresa:          It kind of makes me think of gore and blood or something.

Genevieve:     Like a sunburn.

Mark:              Like a sunburn.  You could sell me at hash tag Larry the Lobster.

Theresa:          I like red, but it’s not good for a body color.

Mark:              Genevieve, maybe we could talk later.

Genevieve:     I like this married dynamic.  I can’t say that I’ve ever been on a show where you get a serenade of your choice, and I get to talk to a married couple and deal with your life instead of my own.  I’m totally in.

Mark:              You should get a clothesline in here because I’m about to ready to hang out the dirty laundry.

Genevieve:     I have whiskey over here if you want to like…

Theresa:       Real whiskey?

Genevieve:     Yeah.

Mark:              Do you have real booze?

Genevieve:     It is.

Mark:              Can you pass me that bourbon please?

Theresa:          Wow.  There’s everything in this — I want to stay here.  We could live here.

Genevieve:     You don’t even need to leave this booth.  You can sleep.

Mark:              On this daybed, which is great.

Genevieve:     Write with a quill or drink whiskey.

Mark:              This would be great (A) to pass out on after I drink that whiskey but (B) for kid’s rooms.  Can I jump on this?

Genevieve:     This is the point.  Yeah, and I found this bed literally $35 at Housing Works.  Then with the re-upholstery and the painting, we can make a good 150 for a good cause.  So, yes, you got 150 bucks it’s yours, honey.

Mark:              Well, I got a question.

Theresa:          He carries a bag full of money everywhere we go just in case I want something.

Genevieve:     What a good husband.

Theresa:          Yeah, and then he has to pull it all out.

Mark:              Tim, get the duffel bag of cash.

Genevieve:     I love this show.

Mark:              We carry it in case we need to buy a TV or a car or something.

Theresa:          Yeah, just in case.

Mark:              Bribe a city official.  Look, I’m not on parole now.

Theresa:          In case we fly somewhere and want to drive home, we’ll just buy a car.

Genevieve:     Is that how you roll in radio?  I need to switch my medium really quick.

Mark:              Tim is in charge of the money.  He doesn’t always bring it, though.

Theresa:          He’s got it taped all to his chest.

Genevieve:     Is it always you three, or this a special thing?  Is this your thing?  Three.

Theresa:          This is us.

Genevieve:     I love this.

Mark:              Sometimes we go big.

Genevieve:     Bringing back the jingle.  Bringing back music to radio.  I’m in.

Mark:              You can be our guest any time you want.

Theresa:          You can be our correspondent.

Genevieve:     I’ll be your contributor.

Mark:              Oh, are you kidding me?

Genevieve:     Any time.  I’m right here.

Mark:              We’re on 18th Street with Genevieve Gorder.  Dear Genevieve.  Genevieve, are you there?

Genevieve:     18th Street has a lock down.

Mark:              We need a teletype of some sort.  I know they don’t have those anymore, but it sounds newsy.

Theresa:          Here’s a typewriter over here.  Did you see the old typewriter?

Mark:              Genevieve, can you type on that for a while so we can just catch the sound?

Genevieve:     I think I’m umbilical corded to those machine.

Theresa:          You have a phone next to it that we have the same phone at home.  Your grandpa’s phone.

Genevieve:     And it works?

Theresa:          Yes, it does.  This just in.  Reporting live from Housing Works Design on a Dime, Genevieve Gorder.  What do you have for us today?

Genevieve:     I have a typewriter for sale for $35, and I can start auctioning off this booth in about 10 seconds.  150, 150.

Mark:              Oh, that’s awesome.  Now we have a teletype machine, which is a first for us.  Oh, that’s very good.  I have a painting question now.

Genevieve:     Hit it.

Mark:              Eggshell, gloss, semi-gloss on the walls, satin.  I’ve actually gotten in trouble with satin before.  It’s finicky.

Genevieve:     Yes, it is.

Mark:              Tips?  Differences?  What do you like?

Genevieve:     I like all or nothing.  I usually don’t go anywhere in between.  The pearls, the satins, bye.  If I want shiny, I’m going to do it on molding, like case molding up half the wall, and I’m going high gloss.  I want that perfect lacquer finish.

Mark:              Yeah.  Talk to me.  That’s Barry White to me right there.

Genevieve:     I wish I could switch into that voice right now, and we could just take it there.  High gloss, baby.

Theresa:          Tim?

Tim:                 Listen here, baby.  All high gloss all the time.

Genevieve:     I love that.  We’re going to a design porn place.  This is really fun.  It happens on every show.

Theresa:          That could be a new show.

Mark:              As it turns out, we are taping a new show.  It’s going to be a private design porn.

Genevieve:     All of us TV designers, we have to do cutaways where we touch the furniture so they get the shot, and it’s always like, “Oh, yeah, baby.”  You have to do it over and over.  Getting back to finish…

Mark:              Good segue.

Genevieve:     No bridge there.  For walls, I definitely like a flat finish.  I like it to feel like butter.  What happens when you start adding gloss to your paint and you get into the pearls, you get into the satins, you get into that middle zone — you said you had some trouble with the satins — is it starts to show all the discrepancies in the wall itself.  No wall is straight.  No wall is taped perfectly.  I don’t want to see the tape, the waver.  I just want to see a beautiful butter color.  That’s why I go flat.  Everywhere else on molding, I go high gloss.

Mark:              Now you’re talking.

Genevieve:     Can we still be friends?

Theresa:          I want to talk about something else that might turn you on.

Mark:              Bring it.

Theresa:          We follow you on Twitter, and you are a runner.

Genevieve:     I am a runner.  Are you runners?

Theresa:          Well, recreationally, and he does races.  He’s done Urbanathlons

Genevieve:     You’re serious.

Mark:              Adventure races and all kinds of stuff.

Genevieve:     You’re hardcore, and you’re more of a recreational.

Theresa:          He’s the guy that if we go for a run he’ll literally run around me in circles and run up a hill and run back, and I’m going as fast as I can.

Genevieve:     That’s so good for your self-esteem.

Theresa:          Yes, it is.  It’s very good for my self-esteem.

Mark:              You should see all the stuff at our house that’s awesome for my self-esteem.  That’s my only gag.  Okay?

Genevieve:     This is where you win it.

Mark:              This is where I can level the playing field a little bit.

Theresa:          Do you do races or anything?

Genevieve:     I do.  I do small races.  I’m not a marathoner, and I don’t pretend to be.  I’m doing my first half marathon in a couple months in San Francisco.

Theresa:          Is that the Bay to Breakers?

Genevieve:     No.  My best friend set it up.  I’m just showing up, and I’m training like mad.  What it is for me in New York City we don’t drive, so it’s my time in the car by myself with my headphones on.  It’s that release.  It’s free.  I’m outside.  I’m sure you guys feel this too.  As an adult, you stop playing outside.  This is like my playground.  I get to just tune out and shut all the design machines off.  Often times I’m seeing something.  I see a new color.  I notice something, and I’m recording it in my phone as I’m running.

Mark:              Yes.  I literally wrote an introduction to one of our shows — perhaps this one — while running on a horse farm.

Genevieve:     You were running on a horse farm?

Mark:              Yeah.  There’s a horse farm right near our house.  It’s one of the fun things I love about running is off the beaten track is just not that far away.

Genevieve:     You explore.

Mark:              You find stuff.

Genevieve:     You’re a kid again.

Mark:              There’s this cool horse farm everyone drives by, thousands of people a day.  They don’t know it’s there.  There’s a trail head right there.  It’s a run I take, and I am lost in there.

Genevieve:     Well, did you run in high school and college?  Before you were an adult did you run?

Mark:              I ran in high school.  Yeah.

Genevieve:     I ran in high school too.  Then I stopped.  You go to college.  You go do your thing.  I’ve always been athletic.  Running didn’t come back until after I had my daughter, and it was needing that quiet and that time alone that you don’t have when you have kids.  Someone introduced to me this application called Couch to 5k.  Have you ever heard about this?

Mark:              No.

Theresa:          No.

Genevieve:     It was one of my tweeters.  It sets you up on nine weeks from the couch if you’ve literally never run before, which I had, so I had a little leg up, but my tendency is to always overdo it.  I’ll be like, “Well, I used to race.  I’m just going to take 10 miles right now,” after not running for years.

Mark:              Then you’d be in a wheelchair.

Genevieve:     Exactly.  That’s pretty much me in life with everything.  It really paces you out, and it built me up to a 5k right away.  I got probably 200 to 300 people running with me.  Then we do the Color Run, and we do all those fun little city runs, and they get to meet you.  It’s a nice social media posse.

Theresa:          If you do a hash tag, is it ggrunning?

Genevieve:     ggrunning.  Yeah.  A lot of moms are like, “I don’t have the time.”  It’s 30 minutes.  You got time.  Get out.  Have him watch the kid while you get up a half an hour earlier.  It was just a gift to get it, so I pass it along to everyone.  I don’t work with them.  I don’t speak on behalf of the app.  I just think it’s great.

Theresa:          One of the things that exercise does in getting outside is that you find that you’re spending less time complaining.  You’re spending less time being tense.  Then that leads to having health problems and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  Spending time on yourself is really worth it.  We agree with you.

Genevieve:     I’m with you.  I told you I’m in for the show.  I’m down.

Mark:              I just had this conversation with someone who was at the finish line of the Boston Marathon a half hour before the whole thing happened.  He saw the whole thing and he said, “I vow to come back and run the 5k that’s before the Boston Marathon,” but he doesn’t run now.  I know there are other people who are like, “I want to do something.  I want to do this.”  What experience did you have going from, let’s just say zero, couch to I’m walking out the door?

Genevieve:     We all have that time where you just get sick of yourself.  You’re just like, “I’m done.  I can’t feel this way anymore.”  When you’ve had it, there’s that moment.  It’s different for everybody.  I think it was this introduction of this guide for me.  I don’t like people yelling at me.  I’m pretty much hard enough and intense enough on my own.  I don’t need a soul cyclist to scream at me while I pump on a bike.  I want to detach and disconnect and focus internally so I can keep giving back because that’s all I do for my job.  You guys provide the same kind of service.  You’re always giving outward.  It’s that one moment where you can replenish, and it’s free.  With running, it’s like I don’t have to show up for anybody but me.  I can put my music on, and I can just stop.

Theresa:          That is exactly how I feel about running.  I always used to like to it’s my church.  It’s my place to regroup.  This guy likes to talk.  He’s an athlete athlete, though.

Genevieve:     She’s a runner too, standing over there.

Theresa:          Oh.

Mark:              If I weren’t taking you so seriously, the first words out of my mouth would’ve been, “But I don’t get sick of myself.” I mean are you kidding me?

Genevieve:     When is your birthday?

Mark:              It’s Leo.

Genevieve:     I’m a Leo.  What are you?

Theresa:          Cancer.

Genevieve:     Oh, we love you.

Mark:              Yeah, that’s right.

Genevieve:     What are you?

Tim:                 Cancer.

Genevieve:     Oh, we’ve got water and fire in the mix.

Mark:              Fire nation.  Bring the action.

Theresa:          A little gregarious.

Genevieve:     We’re over the top people.  It’s a nice way to recenter.

Theresa:          Yes.  Very true.

Genevieve:     I wish people could see the facial expressions going on right now.

Mark:              This segment of MyFixitUpLIfe is brought to you by me pinching my forehead wondering what to do next.

Genevieve:     How did you guys get into fix it up life?  Were you just inspired?

Mark:              Can this be a therapy couch like one of those ones where I lay down on it?Theresa:          Oh, now she’s going to interview us.  Should we lie down on the couch here?

Theresa:          Well, first came love, and then came work, and then came marriage, and then more love.

Mark:              Theresa’s a designer.

Theresa:          Yeah, I went to architecture school.  Mark started out as a contractor.  He started building docks off of Cape Cod and landscaping, and then he was building scaffolding in Atlantic City for how tall of a building?

Mark:              It was Arlington, Virginia.  That was 13 stories.

Theresa:          Thirteen stories and doing all kinds of renovation work, and then we started writing for professional magazines together.

Mark:              Then we wrote a book.

Theresa:          It was one of those Harry met Sally things.  We worked at the same company, but we never talked.  We never met.

Genevieve:     Did you kind of like her, though, anyways?  Did you notice her?