Who are we kidding? Of course I'm going to be the cranky, detail-oriented, most demanding judge. After all, I'm the editor in chief of ELLE DECOR -- a design magazine where I review architects' and designers' work every single day of the week -- and since I've agreed to feature the winning project in our September issue, don't think I'm not going to be tough. First off, like Todd Oldham and Jonathan Adler, I live in New York, not L.A. The three of us literally moved to the West Coast for the duration of the filming. I packed my laptop and more luggage than you can imagine and settled into the Four Seasons Beverly Hills, where the staff became like family to me. And even though Jonathan and I vowed to learn to surf, in truth, when we weren't taping I was either editing, FedExing, or sleeping (some episodes didn't wrap until the wee hours of the morning).

For instance, the taping of Episode One -- which had a call time of about noon and stretched until 4:30 A.M. -- was a rough entry to reality-TV life. We arrived, met the production crew, tried to memorize the names and faces of the 12 contestants, and went straight to work. (Okay, we also had some hair and makeup help, shockingly about two hours' worth.) Now that I've watched the first show, I understand what went into the creation of each room, but that night we saw only the finished product and were clueless as to the drama behind the scenes. And what drama there was. But it's not the backstory that interests me, it's the design.