Good Bones Recap: Season 7, Episode 10
Good Bones “The Wedding Studio” front exteriorPhoto by The Home Aesthetic
Hello, everyone! Good Bones goes house-free this week to take on a retail project in Clay Terrace. Contributing editor Megan Fernandez and art director Kristin Sims are diving into the recap like it’s a pile of raked leaves.
Mina Hawk takes the show into the friend zone, designing a bridal shop owned by a close pal, Adrienne. It’s Adrienne’s third appearance in Season 7 and at least fourth overall. She has been a homebuyer, a reveal guest, a background character, and now a client. Mina says this job is a big chance for Two Chicks and a Hammer to prove that they can make large commercial spaces beautiful, too.
Megan: This season is turning into Good Buds. We have met quite a few Friends of Mina lately.
Kristin: Yes, between Good Bones and Risky Business, she’s been showing her peeps a ton of her TV love.
Megan: I was initially disappointed that this episode won’t focus on a house. We just got back to normal after the six-week break for Risky Business, and I want to settle in with some familiar stuff from the gang.
Kristin: Me, too. No offense to her girls, but I’m looking for some new faces. Maybe Good Bones will be a mix of old, new, and commercial properties from now on?
Megan: Depends on how many friends Mina has! Adrienne’s bridal shop in Clay Terrace (in the affluent suburb of Carmel, out-of-towners) is taking over a 6,000-square-foot clothing store. She needs dress racks, a cash wrap with some privacy for talking numbers, sitting areas, dreamy fitting rooms, and a VIB salon. That’s for the Very Important Bride and up to 30 of her friends and family.
Kristin: I hope we get the design feel from this episode and not just an hour-long commercial for the store.
Megan: The goal is to make the store feel magical and special, so that’s promising from a design standpoint.
Kristin: Wedding-dress shopping has come a long way. Does everyone want the Say Yes to the Dress experience?
Megan: I think that show definitely upped the ante. When you’re spending up to $12,000, the high end of Adrienne’s price point, you want to make it a party. The project budget is $100,000 for a space equivalent to six living rooms. In two months! Mina squealed “to be open?” when she heard that. Adrienne is already paying rent and needs to start bringing in revenue fast. Same as Mina’s situation in Risky Business.
Kristin: With no time to waste, the crew starts with removing a huge wall mirror in the previous store’s fitting room. Cory says, “Here goes hernia” as he bends down to heave it.
Megan: It would be like 70 years of bad luck to break a mirror that large. Plus, Mina wants to repurpose it. I wonder how much a giant mirror costs? A few hundred dollars?
Kristin: Probably much more than that.
Megan: Then a crew experienced with commercial spaces and metal framing arrives. The boys learn some new techniques and then get ahead of themselves and mess something up. I guess whatever they did can’t be as bad as framing the house five feet too short (last week) or … what were the other flubs this season?
Kristin: Where do we start?
Megan: Good point. It has been a theme. MJ wears a tiara to the design meeting with Mina at the Two Chicks headquarters.
Kristin: Did they really need a wedding dress in the headquarters for inspiration?
Megan: At least MJ isn’t wearing it. We saw that gag enough in this episode. All of the fitting rooms will be a different “barely color,” like blush and other soft hues. Arches everywhere. One big design element is a hallway ceiling covered with flowers or fairy-forest stuff. “Elegant fairytale” is the vibe.
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Kristin: The ornate racks that will display the dresses make me think that they’ll be bringing in Iron Timbers again—that’s right up their alley. And was it my imagination or did MJ’s eyes get big when Mina mentioned that Karen had some ideas to decorate the mirror? Go take another look. It’s brief but funny.
Megan: You have Iron Timbers radar! Yes, Adrienne gets to go on a field trip to our favorite workshop to bend some metal for the hanging dress racks. We get to see a machine that does the job, which Mina says she could probably do by hand. Because she’s strong.
Kristin: Back at Clay Terrace, the Iron Timbers guys are already finished and installing the reception desk and the cash wrap station. The Two Chicks boys are there to help install the dress racks. The bold black arches really make a statement in the store.
Good Bones “The Wedding Studio” dress racksPhoto by The Home Aesthetic
Megan: They hang from high ceilings, and you can really see them, but they aren’t too much. With that done, Karen wants to make a creative installation in the front window. The idea is to break that big mirror that they purposefully didn’t break earlier and reassemble the pieces in the shape of roses on the wall. Tad is excited to break something. He calls it a heartfelt passion. He insists on standing the mirror up and letting it fall to the floor, while Cory begs him not to, thinking he’ll break the floor tile. I bet you were a big fan of this.
Kristin: HATED this! I don’t get the whole idea, really—and I’m up for some creative craft ideas. But this was crazy. Breaking mirrors all over the place. Tad smashing the big mirror into tiny, unusable shards. Picking out the pieces with their bare hands. Karen wearing open sandals.
Megan: You are handing out safety violations like Halloween candy. I’m curious to see if they can make the installation really look like roses, which have a very specific shape. A beautiful mural might have been easier and made a bigger impact.
Kristin: Or some gorgeous wallpaper.
Megan: Where’s Andrew McCarthy when you need him?
Kristin: Now that would be a window that I could get behind! For those of you who were born in this century, Andrew McCarthy was the heartthrob of 1980s classics like Less Than Zero and Pretty in Pink (the all-time best movie). He also starred as a window designer in a movie called Mannequin, where Kim Cattrall played a mannequin that came to life—which is the reference here.
Megan: I thought you were a Patrick Dempsey/Can’t Buy Me Love girl.
Kristin: Nah, he was too young and skinny then. Andrew was my first love. Patrick later when he turned hunky. We are really showing our age.
Megan: We are definitely the “something old” of this bridal episode—even older than the gowns that Karen cuts up for another craft project. She uses the fabric to make flowers and attaches them around an arched mirror to be used for final fittings. Speaking of reveals, the team quickly decorates the fitting rooms, and it’s time for Adrienne to see her new shop.
Kristin: Mina’s in a blazer. Something new. Must be her “commercial” look.
Megan: I see something borrowed—the dramatic pink sofa in the main seating area has to be the same one from Charlotte Hall’s speakeasy in Risky Business, two weeks ago.
Kristin: It IS the sofa from the speakeasy! Does the production company think the viewers are not paying attention or just blind? There’s been so many times this season (Good Bones and Risky Business) that have had the same pieces added and subtracted, moved and reused. Come on, give us a little more credit.
Good Bones “The Wedding Studio” waiting areaPhoto by The Home Aesthetic
Megan: It’s not exactly a sofa you’d forget. Also not an easy sofa to move in and out of a basement (the speakeasy). Wonder where it ended up?
Kristin: I saw the sofa in the store pictures, so my guess is that they used it to film the speakeasy and then moved it. But that would be a shame because that size and color were a great addition to the tiny speakeasy space.
Megan: No chance they bought two of the same sofa? Tufted twins?
Kristin: I hope so. It’s a great piece!
Megan: The VIB salon has the biggest velvet sofas I have ever seen. They’re as long as a limousine.
Kristin: I can’t imagine bringing 30 people to try on gowns. But, as we said, times are different.
Megan: The garden ceiling with twinkle lights turned out nice and mossy. It’s my second-favorite part of the store. The first is the champagne doorbell. Mina installed one in the VIB suite to call for more bubbly.
Kristin: Mina rings it to demonstrate, and Austin comes out in a tuxedo tee and champagne flutes. They seemed genuinely surprised to see him!
Megan: Yeah, that was funny and authentically Good Bones. Then Adrienne tries on her favorite dress, a feathery dream. She walks out to the final-fitting pedestal. It was a sweet ending to the episode, which was light on design but still charming with pretty things and meaningful work for Mina. I enjoyed it. You?
Kristin: It was a nice distraction, but like you, I’m ready to get back to the meat and Bones of the season.
Megan: I miss poop.
Gallery by The Home Aesthetic, courtesy Two Chicks and a Hammer
