Here’s what Joan Steffend did when TikTok began mocking ‘Decorating Cents’
- Former host Joan Steffend of the budget-minded makeover show "Decorating Cents" discovered the series was being rediscovered on social media, leading to mixed reactions from viewers.
While "Decorating Cents" began streaming on discovery+ in 2021, former host Joan Steffend learned that the series, a budget-minded makeover hit on HGTV back in the 1990s and 2000s, was more recently getting rediscovered on social media.
How fun, she thought.
Or … maybe not.
"People began asking, 'Um … have you heard what they are saying about the show?'" Steffend says. "I'm not on TikTok or Instagram, so I said, 'No! What are they saying?' in a chirpy way. But I wouldn't get straight answers."
When Steffend and her husband, Joe Brandmeier, sat down in their Edina home earlier this summer to watch Rob Anderson's commentary — he's a New York comedian who started the recent viral rewatch — she realized why people were being vague.
"There was something about 'How criminal' and how we should be arrested for the horrors that we're inflicting on people," Steffend says with a laugh, "and how we do makeovers for under $500 but it takes $5,000 to correct."
She laughs now, but that wasn't her first reaction.
"My heart, it broke," she says with a sigh. "Not because of the criticism, but that it felt so discounting of what shaped that show, and what shaped that show was a sense of camaraderie with the crew, with creativity and just trying stuff."
Let's take a step back and discuss the creativity that fueled the show.
'Decorating Cents'
Back in 2000, the Pioneer Press was in attendance as "Decorating Cents" made over a dining room in Minnetonka.
"Jennifer Ezrilov hated her dining room," our story, published on April 28, 2000, began. "The floral wallpaper looked dated. An oak dining-room table and chairs, inherited from relatives, seemed drab. What the place needed, Ezrilov decided, was a makeover.
"Decorating Cents to the rescue."
The show's premise was simple: A crew, including a roster of interior designers and craftsmen, had a day and $500 to redo a room in someone's home as Steffend rolled up her sleeves to pitch in as well as serve as the host.
Remember, this show ran from 1997 to 2008 — before Wayfair, Instagram, eBay or other sites we've come to use as inspiration and shopping sites.
At the time, HGTV was still called "Home & Garden Television." Even before "Trading Spaces" started rolling onto reality television by having neighbors redecorate each other's homes with help, there was "Decorating Cents," a staple on HGTV's schedule; Steffend's star was rising.
Or, as Steffend's friend, Ian Punnett , the late radio personality, put it:
"Ian used to say I was like Hitler on the History Channel: always on," Steffend said. "They had it running at least six days a week, sometimes twice a day. And then they had me do specials, like six 'Dream Homes,' the White House Christmas special, the Rose Bowl parade and various things."
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This former newsie, who worked as a weekend anchor at KARE 11, found HGTV a better fit, and not only because the schedule provided a better work-life balance with two kids at home. She first heard about an opportunity with Edelman Productions at a media book club gathering.
"Kevyn Burger (a local writer/broadcaster and media personality) was there and she had a connection with Edelman and said he was looking for a host for a gardening show and a decorating show," Steffend recalls. "I thought I had no desire to do a decorating show, because my decorating is functional — I was raised by children of the Depression, it was all about repainting stuff that you found. Which means I was basically brought up inside 'Decorating Cents.'"
With these origins, Steffend realized it was the perfect fit — for just 13 episodes.
"I threw my hat in and then it ended up running, for me, for 10 years," Steffend says.
The series ran from 1997-2008, with Steffend signing off in 2007.
A comedian on TikTok
Fast forward 28 years and go to Rob Anderson's TikTok channel — @heartthrobert — and you'll find a six-part series of the comedian's commentary on "Decorating Cents" that begins with part one, posted on June 20:
"There is a home decorating show from the 90s that people keep sending me, so I started watching it," Anderson tells his 2.7 million followers. "My jaw is on the floor. 'Decorating Cents' was a show on HGTV, hosted by Joan Steffend, where they would take a perfectly normal room and, on a tiny budget, make it worse."
I am now fully addicted to this show. #designingcents #design #designing #homedecor #homedesign Designing Cents on HGTV Miami Room and Kids Overalls
♬ original sound – Rob Anderson
As the designer in the highlighted episode gets to work — using colorful pitchers as hanging elements in front of a big kitchen window — the comedian watches along and we see him wincing, laughing and making sarcastic comments such as: "Great alternative to a curtain, she is so right. Finally, some privacy in my kitchen."
Since June 20, clips from the show have spread across TikTok, along with more commentary on that 1990s aesthetic, like this one: "I took a suggestion from one of these shows way back when, and used a colorful pillow I liked to inspire my whole family room," a TikTok user called Smooth wrote. "Cranberry, turquoise, orange, and navy blue. With green couches. It was even uglier than it sounds. About 7 years ago, I changed everything to gray and white. Because I was so traumatized from living with those frightful colors for so long!"
Anderson said "Decorating Cents" actually stood out in a good way among shows of its era.
"I found so much joy discovering and watching 'Decorating Cents' because it was so earnest," he said in an email to the Pioneer Press. " It wasn't so much like 'Trading Spaces' where the producers were setting up bad makeovers for good TV … Joan and her guests were genuinely trying to find creative redecorating approaches that would sometimes end with wonderfully egregious results. But it was Joan's wholesome, calming tone as she described some of their devious redecorations that absolutely killed me. I was obsessed with it."
Since June, Anderson and Steffend have connected.
"I thanked him," Steffend said. "I told him we'd ended up having quite a bit of fun with this."
'What would Joan do?'
Here's the fun part.
"My first reaction, it was painful," she said. "My second reaction was to completely freeze and just pretend it wasn't happening, which became kind of impossible, because people were calling and wanting things from me, like a company called and wanted me to be a Tik Tok spokesperson for them for paint."
A family gathering over the Fourth of July led to an epiphany.
"My daughter asked how I was doing, and I said, 'I feel like I've gotten to a neutral place, kind of a frozen place,'" she recalls. "And an idea was floated: "Isn't there some way that we can just have fun with it?' We started googling stuff, and thought, like, you know, let's do some designs for T-shirts or something, just so I have a voice in it."
Thanks to this epiphany, and help from her familly and friends, the public can now go to joansteffend.com and order merchandise including T-shirts that feature illustrations of Steffend in her signature overalls, holding paint rollers and glue guns and asking questions like, "What would Joan do?"
She sent the comedian two T-shirts, by the way. He invited her to his comedy show in Minnesota this fall.
"There's a 52 percent chance I'll go," she says.
Anderson says he's glad that Steffend has leaned in to the roasting.
"When she told me of her plans of poking fun at the show by selling T-shirts and that her family has had fun with it, it made me really happy," he wrote. "I shared her website to my followers and since I've been traveling, I haven't gotten to pick up the shirts she sent me, but I can't wait to share what they look like."
Joan's supporters
Frank Vascellaro would like a word with TikTok, please.
Vascellaro anchors the evening news on WCCO-TV with his wife, Amelia Santaniello, but back in the 1990s, he was new to town and living in a place that needed some attention.
"Decorating Cents" to the rescue.
"She did a redo of my bachelor pad and it was awesome," he recalls. "She made it look like someone who knew what they were doing, someone with style lived there … she made it a home."
Besides elements like paint, throw pillows and a rug to pull it all together, the $500 makeover of the living room and kitchen included an especially meaningful accent.
"She took old black and white photos of my mother and father that were grainy to begin with, took them to a Kinko's and had them blown up and put them in inexpensive frames. They looked like professional photos, it was brilliant," he says. "I still have them and treasure them today."
In the local community, Steffend is known as one of the nicest people around, so Vascellaro takes umbrage at anyone poking fun at her.
"Some of the things she did on that show were ahead of her time — repurposing, on a budget — and sure, two or three decades have passed, but the fundamental concepts are great," he said. "And you are talking about one of the nicest, kindest, most sincere people on the planet who just wanted to go in and help other people, that's who Joan is, she asks, 'How can I make things better?' She meant it then and she still means it now. So to see her attacked was upsetting to me."
One of Steffend's co-workers on the show, Robb Whittlef of the "Trash to Treasure" segment, recently caught up with her over lunch and they discussed going viral. Here's what he takes from this moment:
"Haircuts in the 90s? Some of it just doesn't age well," Whittlef says with a laugh. "But the DNA of the show was so great and uplifting.
"My take on it, as I said to Joan yesterday, is that while the tsunami of toxicity can come from anything of this nature, when people are trying to pick something apart or put them down, it started with somebody doing something that was creative and fun and good."
Then and now
These days, Steffend, 70, has a number of projects percolating — from a book to a documentary — and she also helps take care of her four grandchildren. She doesn't spend time on TikTok, though — although she encourages those who do to see "Decorating Cents" clips in a different light.
After all, in this economy, frugality and creativity are key for many of us.
"The capacity of the designers was amazing, they had to come up with five to six unusual things to do and demonstrate on the show, every week," Steffend said. "That's a lot, and we didn't have Etsy or Houzz. They were inspiring themselves at dumpsters and Home Depot and yard sales. To me, there's a lot to be proud of."
She also hopes the series can still inspire others, people who might not even have been born yet when the show debuted.
"I hope that being made fun of for creativity 30 years ago doesn't keep people from trying to be creative now, you know?" Steffend says. "Because one quick way to shut people down is to mock them … I hope people decide to be creative, no matter what other people think."
Or, have some fun with it if they do get teased.
On her newly fired up website , a "Decorating Cents" era photo of Steffend shows her smiling with a paint roller in hand. By clicking on the lines, "It's Giving 1997" and "We May Have Some Regrets," one is lead to a shopping page , with this affirmation:
have fun.
make mistakes.
paint over it.
