Ellen’s Design Challenge’ Returns to HGTV

Television icon and entertainment pioneer Ellen DeGeneres will return to HGTV with a second season of her top-rated furniture competition series, Ellen’s Design Challenge. Premiering on Monday, January 18, at 9 p.m. ET/PT, the highly anticipated season will showcase ten competitors as they sketch, design and build innovative furniture to avoid elimination. The contestants, who will be introduced to viewers on New Year’s Day in the one-hour special Ellen’s Design Challenge: Meet the Cast, will be tasked with such challenges as designing furniture for the greenrooms at TheEllen DeGeneres Show. At the end of the season, the last competitor standing will receive a $100,000 cash prize courtesy of Wayfair.com and see their work featured in HGTV Magazine.

“I am so excited for season two of Ellen’s Design Challenge,” said Ellen. “I promise this season is going to be bigger, better and armoirier.”

“Ellen’s signature style and wit make her relatable and so much fun to watch on HGTV,” laughed Kathleen Finch, Chief Programming Officer, HGTV, Food Network and Travel Channel. “Ellen’s Design Challenge lets fans see her like they never have before—expressing a personal passion for home and furniture design.”

During each episode, the competitors will face design challenges that inspire their creativity and, since the clock will be ticking, they will be paired with an expert HGTV or DIY Network carpenter to help them complete the task at hand. The experts include Chip Wade, Matt Blashaw, Jeff Devlin, Matt Muenster, Karl Champley, Brooks Utley, Stephen Zimpel and Ali Azhar. Each contestant also will have access to a “build team” and a large workshop.

The weekly challenges will be judged by Cliff Fong, a twenty-year veteran interior designer and owner of the interior design firm Matt Blacke Inc., and Christiane Lemieux, executive creative director of Wayfair.com. Special guest judges will join the panel each week. The guest judges include Sean Yashar, owner of interior design firm The Culture Creative; interior designer Peter Dunham; Wendy Goodman, design editor for New York Magazine; furniture and industrial designer Karim Rashid; Adam Blackman, owner of furniture gallery Blackman Cruz; Thomas Lavin, owner of Thomas Lavin home furnishings; Rodman Primack, Executive Director of Design Miami; and Mallery Roberts Morgan, Los Angeles correspondent for Architectural Digest France.

More series information, including a sneak peek video, the inside scoop from the series carpenters and a behind-the-scenes photo gallery, is available at HGTV.com/Ellen. During the series run, an online companion series will go deeper into the judges’ deliberations as they make the difficult elimination decisions each week.

Ellen’s Design Challenge is produced by Ellen’s production company, A Very Good Production, and A. Smith & Co. in association with Telepictures. The executive producers for the series are Ellen, Jeff Kleeman of A Very Good Production, and Arthur Smith, Kent Weed, Ian Mallahan and Jonathan Singer of A. Smith & Co.

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