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Leslie Segrete TV and Radio Design Personality |
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Leslie Segrete has her finger on the pulse of the home decorating and design industry. A decorator, designer, carpenter and seamstress, she parlayed her home-improvement expertise into a flourishing television and radio career. Her newest gig is as the host of the WE Network’s first home-improvement show, The Ugliest House on the Block, which premiered this past January and focuses on exterior home transformations. “The neighbors nominate the house on the block that is really subpar,” Segrete explains. For the last five years Segrete used her design skills on TLC’s hit series, Trading Spaces and the Emmy-nominated While You Were Out. Since 2005, she has co-hosted The Money Pit, a nationally syndicated radio program heard locally on WABC as well as more than 200 radio stations nationwide. She recently became an editor-at-large for the Shop Girl column in Country Home magazine. My Home, My Money Pit, a book she wrote with radio co-host Tom Kraeutler, is due out this month. Closer to home, Segrete has shared her design talents by helping about 200 Nassau County Girl Scouts earn sewing-skills badges. Segrete, who was a Girl Scout growing up in Garden City where she still lives, received the Juliette Low Award of Distinction at the Girl Scout’s 21st Annual Luncheon in October 2007. Inspired by her father’s architectural career, Segrete studied theatrical production at Hofstra University and later graduated from the French Culinary Institute. Her career started behind the camera as a stage hand for Good Morning America and a set designer for The Ricki Lake Show. She had been promoted to head of set design for the Oxygen network when she tried out for While You Were Out. “We filmed one episode and they offered me the show,” Segrete recalls. She’s been offering design tips ever since. — Marcelle S. Fischler |
Design Tips
We couldn’t resist asking Leslie Segrete for a few.What are the latest furniture trends?
There are so many different styles of furniture reemerging. There is traditional, but also highly polished, lacquered pieces in fun shapes. It’s no longer about the suite of furnishings to make up whatever room you are dressing up. You’re also seeing a lot of mixing of materials within rooms; it has become completely acceptable.
Have you noticed a rise in the use of green, ecologically-friendly materials?
I am proud and happy to see that happening in all levels, from building materials to furnishings to what is inside the sofa. Even though your house doesn’t have a tailpipe, you are constantly emitting tons of pollutants through your heating system and other elements in your home. Simple things — changing out lightbulbs, upgrading the energy efficiency of your heating system, installing better windows — help contain them.
When it comes to mixing periods, are there any rules?
There are absolutely no rules. It really is about scale to the room and about relationships of furniture pieces to one another. I love to mix up pieces . . . one terribly antique piece right next to a very modern work of art or a contemporary light fixture. It works very well if it meshes with your personality. If you fill your space with things you love and they relate to each other in size, texture and placement in the room, it will all work.
