In theory, one of the easiest situations for an interior designer would be to dress up a plain white room with no windows, odd nooks and crannies or other details to interfere with one’s vision.

But when the sky’s the limit in design, it can become a bit tricky narrowing one’s options and, in Melissa Rivera’s case, a little bit sticky.

The local artist and industrial designer will face off against three other competitors tonight on HGTV’s newest design competition show, "The White Room Challenge," when each of the designers will be working with candy as decor. At stake is a $10,000 prize.

The competition, hosted by David Brom­stad, is a spinoff of the network’s "Design Star" competition, in which interior designers compete in weekly challenges, starting with the white room challenge.

Rivera was in the running for "Design Star" season six, which began airing last summer, but was eliminated in the final rounds before the episodes aired. That was the season that featured homegrown designer Tyler Wisler, who shared Rivera’s love of urban, industrial style. Of the two, Wisler had much more fitting experience as an interior designer, while Rivera’s focus was product design.

She returned home and concentrated on building up her portfolio, working with retailers to design store spaces, and in the fall was invited to apply for "Design Star" a second time and meet with producers in New York. But from the start, she said she suspected the producers had other plans for the recruits, many of whom had auditioned for the TV series three to four times.

"Everything was different, everything was quick and they came in and told us the ‘good news, bad news.’ The bad news was we didn’t make it to ‘Design Star,’ but they were starting a new show and we would be on for one episode and would have to be in L.A. in three weeks. I didn’t even feel like I had time to think about it."

At Universal Studios in Los Angeles, she and her "White Room" competitors were given 15 minutes to look at their 10-by-10-foot space — about the size of a typical bedroom — and start planning ways to incorporate candy into their design. Each had $2,000 to spend on candy, furniture and accessories, and Rivera said she split her budget between candy and furnishings.

"Some things people don’t see, like the walls are flimsy, so you can’t hang anything heavy, and I like to hang things," she said, adding that although she doesn’t know what the edited show will look like, the candy offerings might appear to be more abundant to TV viewers than actually the case because parts of the store were off-limits to the designers.

"I tried to hog all the cotton candy because it has an interesting texture and is fluffy, so it would take more space," she said, forgetting that the candy could easily revert to its liquid sugar state.

"It stuck to my hands. It didn’t do anything. It would melt and get hard, so I would be working with paint and cotton candy would get stuck in the paint and my hands would be nasty."

Although the designer pre­sents herself here to be capable, confident and happy-go-lucky, she said there were moments she felt stalled and wanted to cry. She didn’t want to give producers the satisfaction, knowing they were always angling for drama.

"It probably looked like I was always in trouble. At the end of the first day (taping was done in two days), my room looked like it had nothing on it. I spent more time building things on the side.

"When they knew you were stressed out or struggling, they would pull you from your work for interviews. They came at the exact moment you didn’t want to talk to people and ask, ‘Oh, don’t you feel a little disappointed?’"

While she’s not allowed to say how she finished, her sense of humor remains intact. "It was funny. In the end you just have to laugh at it," she said.