Dream Home Makeover

-Are you ready for this? -Heck, yeah.

Okay. I'm Shea.

And I'm Syd.

And we're the McGees.

In 2013, I designed our first home

and then started posting photos to Instagram.

Soon after that, I had family, friends, neighbors loving what I was doing,

and that turned into paying clients.

We sold our home and used every penny that we made from that home

in starting our business.

Then we got crazy, sold all our stuff in California and moved to Utah?

Yeah.

We have two businesses.

Studio McGee is our interior design firm,

and McGee & Co is our furniture and decor business.

We have a team of about 90 employees.

I run everything creative,

and Syd is CEO of both businesses.

But more than just the handyman, you know?

- -Or the good looks.

To me, design has a very direct impact

on our mood and the way we feel.

So, whether our clients have $2 million or $20,000,

I want them all to feel that sense of peace

when they walk in the door

and that their home is a reflection of their personal style.

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

Great.

Oh... Hey, Wren.

Look at that, how cute that is!

Okay, let's make your bed real quick.

Help me make the bed, okay? You're so good at helping me.

I'm gonna help you here.

Dad's gonna help there.

Right now, our interior design studio is designing 18 dream homes

for clients in Utah and across the country.

But our biggest project is our own home which

we're building from the ground up.

Okay, let's put these back in this corner. Okay?

In the meantime, we're living in a rental with our two girls,

Wren, who's six...

Oh. Nice, Wren.

...and Ivy is three.

That's a big camera!

-Come on. -

We have to be out of our rental house in two months

because the owner sold it.

Mom likes a karate chop. Here.

Can you do a karate chop?

Yes! Thank you.

What's your favorite thing to do at recess?

-Swing. - I knew you were gonna say that.

-That looks so beautiful! -

It really needs to get moving, or we're...

-You don't wanna go to another rental? -No!

-A hotel? -No!

A nice hotel?

Matching bows.

They're wearing the same cardigan? Should I wear it?

You want Dad to wear it?

-I think it looks good. -Sorry. You missed out.

-Dad looks good in a pink cardigan. -

- To Kaysville. - "Kaysvull"?

Yeah, they do say it "Kaysvull" up there.

-Know where we're going? - I know the general direction.

-Like, north. -

We're meeting Emilee and Zann Call.

We're going to be working on an extra living-room space

they really don't know what to do with.

Usually, when I am doing the first walk-through,

it's, "Let's get down to business."

When you come, it's like a party. You make it fun

and you can get the clients relaxed.

Sometimes you see them stressing, like,

"This is my time. I have to give Shea the right answers."

-Good team. - Who would have thought?

We're here.

All right. I'm gonna let you knock.

-You got a fierce knock on you. -Okay.

Hi!

- How are you? -Come in.

Come in!

-How are you? I'm Shea. -Yes, you are.

-I'm Emilee. -I'm Zann.

Good to meet you.

I'm Emilee Call. This is my husband, Zann.

We've been married 15 years.

-Fifteen and a half. And a half. -And a half. Yep.

-Are these your cute kids? - All of them.

Lola is almost ten,

Crosby is seven,

Sylvie is five,

and then Phoebe is two and a half.

Three girls.

One boy in our sea of women.

Syd's hoping for a "one boy in a sea of women."

I am the guy in the sea of women. That's awesome.

I am looking at your house and feeling like you've redone some of it.

Yes. So, we moved in here six years ago, and we just tackled this main room.

Did you guys do the remodel yourselves?

He did it all.

He's so handy.

Any request I have to build something,

he just can figure it out.

He loves it. If a neighbor's doing a project,

he's, "I should see what's going on."

He just likes to help, and I love that about him.

He moved stairs. We had to dig underneath our stairs.

-Moved stairs yourselves? I'm impressed. -Underneath was crawl space,

so we had to cut the concrete and dig one bucket at a time.

-So if you ever have to escape prison... - Yeah.

-"Guys, I know what this is gonna take." -You're the guy.

-Yeah. - Okay.

Let's take a look at the "trouble room."

-Are you ready? - Yeah, I wanna see it.

-Prepare yourself. -

All right, this is her in all her glory, in all her 70s glory.

This is bigger in person than the photos that I saw beforehand.

It's a big room to be completely wasted.

-Yeah. -Really, it's like half our house.

It's just super underutilized.

We don't know what to do with it. I spend zero time in here.

Okay.

The space just isn't being utilized.

I can see that they have struggled to figure out how to make it work for them

and then just kind of

closed their eyes, pretended it wasn't there.

We host like crazy in the summer because our yard is awesome.

- Yeah. -Winter, I shut down,

'cause I hate this room, I don't want people to come over.

We just have seasonal friends, really, so...

Good design provides people a place to spend time together,

create memories, to bond.

Immediately, I'm thinking of all the different ways

that I can make this space better for them.

How are you hoping to use it?

I'm hoping to maybe have some dining area.

A nice big table that we can do crafts with the kids, play games around,

-some sort of office space. -Right.

I finally figured out what we need in it.

-Just not how to lay it out. -Just not how to do it, yeah.

Do you wanna keep the fireplace?

The fireplace is a must.

It's very asymmetrical.

That's good for a modern aesthetic.

-Yeah. -But if we're going for classic,

to create symmetry would be nice.

I'd love to take the stone off.

The Calls currently have about four feet of stone on one side of the fireplace

and two on the other.

It looks like they thought,

"We'll take the stone to the wall."

So, we want to create a focal point

that feels meaningful

and have the sides of the firebox matching.

I imagine a long dining table along here and having that centered on the fireplace.

Perfect. I love that.

I see this little jut-out into this space.

I see door here and door here. What's going on?

It's Tetris corner.

This might be where a baby sleeps.

-It's normal. -Is this a nursery?

-Don't judge... -I'm not judging.

Among our new clients,

I think they feel pressure that I'm going to be judging them.

-Are you house-shaming them? -I do not house-shame.

But when I hear them talk, it's like,

"I'm embarrassed, I don't want people over."

And we've gotta fix that.

-Do you need to keep this? - No, baby has a room.

-Baby has a room? Okay. -Yeah.

Things are looking up.

Things are good, yeah! So we can get rid of this?

-Please do. -Okay.

Are you hoping to go lighter, brighter or trying to get more moody?

Okay, so, is there a way to do both?

Like, moody and bright still, like...

-Okay. -But yes, some moodiness I would love.

That's an opportunity for us to, kind of, create some drama.

Yes!

Moody and bright.

I've gotta find a way to put both of those things together,

but I also want it to be lively and fun.

They're a fun, cute, young family and I wanna keep it feeling like they do.

So you've done a lot of work, Zann. Are you pretty stoked to have someone

come in and do it? You're like, "I need to chill."

-Nervous? -I'm okay for somebody to do it.

You know when you do something, and you notice every little flaw?

It will be nice to have somebody else...

-Yeah. -...thinking of that.

And I won't have to look at my flaws every time I walk in this room.

Cool.

We'll get it there for you.

-Thank you. -I can't wait to make a space for you.

Early on, Syd and I decided

that regardless of how big our business grew,

we didn't want to lose sight of the power of a one-room transformation.

-Thanks for coming to our house. -Of course.

It is really, really satisfying to see a room come together on a tighter budget.