Extreme Makeover

We're re-doing our house. Not remodeling. Not a renovation. Re-doing. Does that even make sense? Like, "do over" in hand-ball. We're Ty Pennington! We're Paige whatever her name is! We're the bald guy with cool glasses who now critiques fashion for E!. We are out of control and we have the crazy.

As I have lamented before our house is tiny but we love it. Well, lately, we hate it. Actually, we have hated it for about 2 years and the poor house shows signs of being hated... the paint? It peels. The yard? Is brick. The furniture? It sucks. We often joke that living here is like camping (see, we're funny like that) and there is a chance that I just might develop a Hungarian accent and spend my days chasing my pig, Arnold, out of my closet/back door.

Fix up the house! This is our motto, our directive, our goal! So, we did what any normal couple who like their neighborhood would do: we consulted an architect. Our architect is the best! Charming, smart and savvy with the dreaded asshats that sit on the Design Review Board. He charges lawyer type fees and vacations often in Hawaii or Bermuda, but he drives a hybrid car and is kind to dogs.

Now, we live in Laguna Beach, CA, and all that should mean to any of you is this: Laguna Beach = $375 a square foot in construction/remodel costs. Can you imagine? Our first set of plans called for a 1,500 sq. ft. addition - you do the math. That's right, it was going to cost us eleventy billion dollars... hmmm... the lovely Hugh and I had a chat and decided that we enjoyed other things like this and this a bit more than a bigger house. On to plan B.

Plan B involved a smaller remodel. Just a new master bedroom and family room... plan B would only cost us half of plan A. We sit down with the eco-friendly dog loving architect and we write him more checks and he gives us a very lovely design and we are all happy and shit and we plan things and look for places to rent while the construction is happening and then, last week, somewhere between Globe Trekker and our second bottle of wine, we decide that we actually can't be fucked to do it.

That's right. We have spent, let us just say in the Junior Bacon Burger Wendy's World, a fuck-load. Our architect may be sad (HA) to lose us as clients, but we feel comfortable in knowing that he can sun his cares away on a sandy beach somewhere... sipping a Mai Tai that we most likely paid for.

Here we arrive at Plan C. Plan C involves getting rid of every single piece of furniture we own, replacing all the floors, new roof, new water heaters, re-landscaping the front and back yard and basically saving much money in the process. This plan makes my husband smile. It doesn't send him running for his best friend. It makes him happy because he is secretly a bit of a woman and enjoys shopping for sofas and "just the right lamp".

Now, because we have allocated half the money that would have been spent in Plan B to the fun of Plan C (again, you do the math) we are conscience of error. We do not want mistakes. We want a dining area in our living room and we want it done right. We are also eyeballing such wild notions like wallpaper and plasma TVs and therefore we have no margin for the error. We decide to consult an interior designer.

She arrives yesterday and, while we really like her and we admire her fashionable boho Joss Stone with a sketchpad look, and we will absolutely be stealing her ideas (because we are like that) there is no way in hell I am paying anyone five thousand dollars to help me pick sofa fabric for the living room. I think she lost us when she mentioned that she could pick "prints" that would work with our new decor. She said this with a straight face while looking at our Warhol, Lichtenstein and 2 Keith Harings. Probably not the right gal for us.

I confess to wanting an interior designer because it sounds very OC and like someone that Julie Cooper Nichol might have in her blackberry... but, you know, no.

In any case, here is the look we are going for... what do you think?