Posted by Bessie on 12/7/2004, 21:56:47 It's a brisk fall morning, and the home of Harmick and Sherri Kazanchian has been turned into a set for a one-hour cable television show. Cardboard covers the floor and crew members bustle from job to job, speaking into earphone walkie-talkies. Lights are on, cameras are set up, talent is in place, and they're ready to roll. The Kazanchians' southwest Las Vegas home was the second in seven stops for "Clean Sweep," the organization and design show from The Learning Channel. The 30-member crew visited Las Vegas Valley families to bring order to disorder and design to cluttered spaces from the southern tip of Henderson to the northwestern end of Las Vegas. The Kazanchians' office and guest bedroom were chosen for a change. Unlike typical guests on the show, who submit applications, the Kazanchians were handpicked for their quintessential Las Vegas vibe. Harmick Kazanchian is a Tom Jones impersonator. "I didn't realize it was such a production," he said midway through the process. "I'm excited about the experience. I'm just grateful I don't have to do any of the work. I'm sure whatever they do, I'm going to love it." Sequined jackets and an expansive record collection were set on the lawn with all the couple's belongings. A yard sale the following Sunday guaranteed some of the items would be sold or given to charity. "As long as we keep what we want to keep and throw out what we want to throw out, it'll be fine," Sherri said. "I hate any kind of work other than stage work," Harmick Kazanchian said. "I would've rather sorted it all out in 10 to 15 years." Clean Sweep protocol The crew visits a disorganized home to give a family a two-room makeover. An organizer, Peter Walsh; a carpenter, Eric Stromer; and Angelo Surmelis, one of the show's four designers, team up with the host, Tava Smiley, for two days of tossing out the old to make way for the new. The catch is that the team gets $1,000 for each room. During the first day, homeowners sift through their stuff, choosing what to sell, toss or keep. Meanwhile, the organizer, designer and carpenter are transforming their two rooms into functional contributions to the household. "Everyone's different. It's not about the stuff. It's always about something else," Walsh said. "Why is the reason couples on this show are so overwhelmed by all this stuff?" Walsh has become a dime store psychologist as he helps people let go of some possessions in the interest of space. Homeowners have had different attitudes about his presence, from "completely accepting to 'Get the hell off my property.' " "Things that people own end up taking up their lives," Walsh said. "You can't live in a space when it's so full of stuff you can't move. You need an objective third party, because it gets very, very emotional. It can get nasty really fast." Walsh's job has two parts: get people to let go of what they don't need or use; and try to make sense of how to best organize the remaining items. Walsh sees opportunities for storage and maintenance where families see obstacles. "It's always an opportunity. The families see it as being overwhelming and too hard to tackle by themselves," Walsh said. "I see it completely opposite." Stromer, the show's chief carpenter, gets a rough sketch of the space and furniture that the designer wants before he arrives. But for the most part, it's a cold introduction. He spends the first day with his team, building pieces for both rooms. On the second day, he helps install those pieces. "Sometimes it's seamless, and sometimes it's a total nightmare," said Stromer, a 20-year general contractor. "When a time limit and construction merge at the apex, it brings out the best and the worst in the project." Stromer has been with the show since its conception, and with every job, it gets easier. Dealing with the stress even spawns happy tunes. "We're like Navy SEALS, this crew is so well trained," Stromer said. "We'll oftentimes break into song. Sometimes, there's no way to cope other than to break into a lovely ballad or a lively show tune, depending on the day." Walsh might get the grief, but Stromer enjoys the gratitude that comes at the end of a project. "In my years as a contractor, no one ever threw their arms around me and said, 'Thank you for the drywall,'" he said. "You still get touched by people. It's incredible." Surmelis works with Stromer and Walsh to come up with a design that will marry the three elements. For the brief moments he can talk to the homeowners, he gets their likes and dislikes. There's no joy if they dislike the finished rooms, he said. He starts every design with color. "It helps you focus. You paint a room. You have to clear a room out. Color is always a great jump start for you," he said. "The moment the color goes up on the wall, it changes." Las Vegas homes have rooms with irregularities or small spaces. Harmick and Sherri Kazanchian's office was long and narrow and bent off to the left at the end. "Don't try to go against what it has," Surmelis said. "Embrace its oddity, and go with it." Las Vegas Oddity comes with similarity in the Las Vegas Valley. Colors, architecture and room size are common denominators found in many valley homes. The carpentry, organization and design crews had to muster much creativity to combat similarity in rooms during their visit. Hope came from the knowledge homes can still be individualized and as different as their owners. "I've consistently dealt with these waves of cookie-cutter houses," Stromer said. "You can still individualize them." For Surmelis, dealing with stucco was a whole other experience. In the Kazanchian's office, which looks as if it might have been a closed-in porch at one time, Surmelis had the stucco painted. Even applying paint to the substance takes certain skill. "I can't think of anything at this moment I hate more," he said. "It's hard to do things to. And it's also hideous." The Kazanchians' office was painted in blues and greens, with plenty of storage and space for Sherri Kazanchian to manage the careers of entertainers, including her husband. In the guest room, bright colors woke up the dreamy surroundings, creating two spaces in one -- a dressing area and bedroom. After the reveal on the second day, the Kazanchians' spent four days and "several hundred dollars" remodeling their office to rebound from a "miserable experience," Harmick Kazanchian said. "I'm sure we're probably the only unhappy people in the whole mix. I don't mean to sound ungrateful. I have no qualms," he said. "Ninety-nine percent of the people would be thrilled." Tammy Matthews, who owns a home in northwest Las Vegas, was a member of the 99 percent of happy people. The Clean Sweep crew helped her part with some sentimental items while making sense of her sons' bedroom and a 9-foot-by-9-foot guest room. "Our problem was having too much stuff," Matthews said. She and husband Mark rid themselves of 80 percent of the clutter in the two rooms, including toys kept for Corbin, 4, and Xavier, 1. "We had a lot of built-up stuff we kept holding onto." One item close to Tammy Matthews' heart was a stuffed pink dog she had as a child. It originally went into the toss pile. "I think someone from the crew noticed I really wanted it, because it was back in Corbin's room when they redid the room," she said. Matthews was most amazed by the design of the guest room. The crew transformed 81 square feet into an art deco living and sleep space complete with fold-out bed, coffee table and chairs. "It was perfect, like we were on the same wavelength. The guest room is awesome. We would've never done it, because we wouldn't have thought of it," Matthews said. "It looks like an ad for IKEA or Pottery Barn or Organized Living." While the Clean Sweep experience was lackluster for the Kazanchians, Matthews and her family couldn't be happier, even though Tammy Matthews broke her promise not to cry in front of Walsh. "Those two rooms look like model home rooms," Matthews said. "It was a really good experience. It really made us want to get the rest of the house up to snuff." The casting is already finished for the season. There are 60 episodes in a "Clean Sweep" season, and the crew will come close to finishing out season two while in the Las Vegas Valley on Saturdayare tentatively scheduled for next spring and summer. To submit an application for season three, visit www.discovery.com and click on the TLC button.
`CLEAN SWEEP': From disorder to order
A cable TV show brings its experts to Las Vegas homes
By TIFFANNIE BOND
VIEW STAFF WRITER
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