Home-design star moves fans at furniture store
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer
Vern Yip knows how to design a room. Apparently, he can fill one, too.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
More than 500 people thronged a new Kaka'ako furniture outlet yesterday for a chance to meet Yip, one of the stars of the popular "Trading Spaces" television series.
Vern Yip, designer on The Learning Channel's show "Trading Spaces," signs an autograph for Christine Owen, 11, of Honolulu at the new Z Home store in Kaka'ako.
Who knew that Yip, a 35-year-old interior designer who was born in Hong Kong, raised in Washington, D.C., and now calls Atlanta home, could draw such a crowd in Hawai'i?
"I knew there'd be a lot of people. He's Vern. He's the best," said Kim Hepburn, a Punahou junior hoping to get an autograph.
Most people waiting to meet Yip already seemed to be on a first-name basis with him — and all the other designers on the show, The Learning Channel's hit in which two sets of neighbors have two days to redo a room in the other's house on a $1,000 budget with the help of a few professionals.
"Vern's one of the good guys," said A. May McCurdy, who stumbled onto the show while channel surfing one day in her one-bedroom 'Aiea condo and has been hooked ever since.
Vern Yip will answer questions and sign autographs from 2 to 4 p.m. today at the Z Home store at 4296 Mala'ai St. in Salt Lake.
McCurdy described her own home design as Victorian, overflowing with antiques, flowers and gilded picture frames, but she's attracted anyway to Yip's modern style, which features clean lines and simple, tasteful color combinations.
Salt Lake appearance
Many said they'd let Yip do a makeover of their own home, but the show doesn't work that way. Instead, show producers choose which one of the designers — whose styles range from modern to wacky — works on the project.
Sometimes, participants are left stunned and in tears when they return to find their queen-sized bed hanging from the ceiling or their bathroom walls covered with 6,000 silk flowers.
"Unlike some others, Vern gives people what they want. He's just a sweet, sweet guy," McCurdy said.
It was easy to see Yip's appeal. Dressed in classic blue jeans, black shoes and a tight-fitting white polo shirt, he flashed his fantastic smile, posed for pictures and chatted with everyone who made it to the head of the line, which at one point wound all the way through the first floor, up a staircase and looped twice around the second floor of the new Z Home store at Queen Street and Ward Avenue.
"First, every one wants to know if the show is really as much fun as it seems," Yip said. "Then they all want to know if we're ever coming to Hawai'i to film."
Lisa Holland, an account manager with the Discovery Network which produces the show, said the show receives about 500 on-line applications a day.
"When we get enough interesting applications from here, we'd definitely like to come," she said.
Eleven-year-old Christine Owen, who lives in Honolulu, said she'd let Yip make over her room, which she described as basic with "lots of boring furniture" and a large poster of Josh Hartnett on the wall.
"I wouldn't mind if he changed everything," she said.
Darlene Bernard, a social worker from Waikiki who waited in line for almost two hours before she got to meet Yip, also said he could do whatever he wanted to her apartment, except for just one problem:
"I don't own it. I rent."
