For a Metropolitan Home (R.I.P.) Showhouse, Showtime cable network provided the themes for the various design extravaganzas; their own roster of highly acclaimed series.  We could choose among Dexter (serial killer/angel), Nurse Jackie (addicted healthcare worker), United States of Tara (multi-personality mom), The Tudors (bloody historical epic), Californication (sex addicted writer) and our favorite, Weeds (pot selling single mom).

Weeds is a black comedy featuring Mary Louise Parker as a drug dealing mother whose escalating involvement outgrows the California gated suburban community.  Early in the second series is a memorable dolly shot: an enormous stolen crucifix hanging flat above an indoor bed of pot plants, used as a light fixture. This very brief ‘reveal’ is so funny (where did that crucifix go?) and monumental (the slow, almost Scorcesian symmetrical dolly shot) that we never forgot it.

When it was time to dream up a Weeds dining room, the image became our leitmotif; an illuminated crystal crucifix suspended over a live, growing dining table surface.

Our table mimics the cross shape of the crystal chandelier standing in for the Majestic Church crucifix. The table, in a picnic style, is really of a set of three identically sized benches/coffee tables that are stacked to make the table. These three 15-inch-high benches are actually a versatile and modular system designed for the showhouse, and can be used in various arrangements to form different settings in different environments, indoors or outdoors. We can’t seem to help ourselves, but every time we design a ‘one-off’ piece it turns into a system.

Weeds is about holding together the entropy that is Nancy Botwin’s life. For the floor covering in our room we stitched together two smaller rugs to make one larger area rug. The stitch is decorative but also holds the rugs together.

Sheer curtains become a giant billboard, printed with a super-graphic of the eyes of Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker), as a nod to Parker’s extraordinary ability to act only with her eyes. The supergraphic returns, but with a personal twist.  Now anyone can memorialize, celebrate or stalk anyone or anything.  In the privacy of your own home.