Metropolitan Home's Showtime House

When I headed over to Metropolitan Home's Showtime House last week, I didn't know what I was walking into. I had thought that Showtime was merely a sponsor of the event, not the inspiration for each and every room in the house. Now in its second year, the Met Home Showtime House asks top-notch interior designers to take a room of the home and furnish it around one of Showtime's programs: Californication, Dexter, Nurse Jackie, The Tudors, United States of Tara and Weeds. The results of the collaboration are highly entertaining

This year includes a fascinating line-up of designers. On the more fantastical end of the designs, I loved Christopher Coleman and Angel Sanchez's cartoon-ish take on a Nurse Jackie interior, complete with an almost all-white color scheme, piles of pills and a hospital-esque bed. However, if I actually had to move into one of the rooms, I might opt for Joannah Kornak's Californication bedroom suite with rich brown walls and Alison Berger lighting. (Sadly, I didn't get any good shots of the space, since they were still putting the room together when I visited).

Among, the interiors that walked the line between total fantasy and real living space was Paul Latham's Weeds lounge space, with a stunning Tom Dixon wing chair and a custom fainting couch -- though, personally, I would pass on the astro-turf carpeting in the bathroom. The Met Home House caused one moment of panic when designer Markus Dochantschi suggested I lie on the bed to examine the mirrored ceiling in his Californication bedroom; I was certain that he was going to suggest I try the Swarovski-encrusted restraints affixed to the bed when he started talking about how to "rediscover the bedroom." Fortunately, I left without having to discover exactly what he meant.

Metropolitan Home's Showtime House is open to the public on weekends from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm, until October 18. Tickets are $20. The House is located in the penthouses at the Tribeca Summit Loft Condominiums at 415 Greenwich Street, New York, New York. It's definitely worth a visit, if you are in the New York area.