Ellen's Design Challenge


Ellen's Design Challenge is an American furniture design reality competition series that premiered on January 26, 2015, on HGTV. The six-episode first season was announced in April 2014, as the first cable television series executive produced by talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. In June 2015, HGTV renewed the series for a second season, that premiered on January 18, 2016.

Background

The competition series features six furniture designers competing together by showing their abilities in sketching, designing and building furniture within 24 hours. Contestants must demonstrate their creativity and versatility in order to impress a panel of judges after each task they do. HGTV handymen and television personalities Jeff Devlin, Brooks Utley, Karl Champley, Chip Wade, David Sheinkopf and Matt Muenster are the team of carpenters that help the contestants. Jay Montepare is the host of the show while Dwell editor-in-chief Amanda Dameron and Christiane Lemieux, executive creative director at Wayfair, are the judges. DeGeneres is the executive producer and makes numerous appearances throughout the show.
Six contestants of the first season included Jose Gaspar de Jesus, Katie Stout, Tim McClellan, Carly Eisenberg, Mark Moskovitz and Leslie Shapiro Joyal. Katie Stout was declared the winner, and awarded the top cash prize of $100,000 and an opportunity to be featured in HGTV Magazine Tim McClellan was originally the winner but was disqualified making him the runner up .
In June 2015, HGTV renewed Ellen's Design Challenge for a second season, which began airing in January 2016. The second season featured additional competitors and had more episodes, including a 60-minute-long special episode that showed behind-the-scenes moments. The contestants of the second season included Vivian Beer, Bradley Bowers, Julie Browning Bova, Miles Endo, McKenzie Gibson, Kyle Huntoon, Alexis Moran, Sef Pinney, Melissa Rivera Torres, and Dave Yale.

Episodes

Season 1 (2015)

Season 1 elimination table

Season 2 elimination table

Controversy

The finale of the first season has sparked some controversy. Katie Stout and Tim McClellan were the two remaining contestants and judges decided to declare McClellan as the winner during the final episode which aired on March 2, 2015. However, it turned out that the winning piece of furniture was very similar to an existing design by European craftsman Simon Schacht. McClellan was eventually disqualified and Stout was named the winner during the taping of The Ellen DeGeneres Show. McClellan appeared on Ellen as well shortly after the controversy and addressed the decision by saying that "the similarities of the two pieces are quite compelling," also adding that he agrees to the decision that has been made and "recognize Katie as the legitimate winner of the show." The controversy has since raised some questions whether it was a publicity stunt.