MPDP appears in a t-shirt and jeans, informing us that the crew is in Maine's largest city, Portland, which is one of America's oldest seaports. Our homeowners are next-door neighbours Scott and Laura (the latter of whom is very pregnant), and Jean and Jim. MPDP tells us that Portland has survived fires and war, so they decided not to inflict Hildi on the poor beleaguered city. Nah, I kid. MPDP rambles about "revolutionizing" living rooms in two days and with $1000. The designers are Vern and Laurie, and the carpenter's Ty. You know, is it just me or has it been a while since Amy Wynn was around? I don't mind Ty too much, but a little mugging goes a long way. Laurie's also still very pregnant, so this must have been filmed this summer, before she went on maternity leave and gave birth to little Gibson Witherspoon (Hickson?) Smith. (By the way, Laurie, if you're reading this: congratulations! I'm sure all the ceiling-fan struggles in the world paled in comparison to pushing a human being out of yourself.) I've got a pregnant Laura and a pregnant Laurie. They're both redheads. Pay close attention, kids, so you don't get confused. Fortunately, they're not on the same team.

Scott and Laura are in their living room; he's playing their upright piano, and she's singing. MPDP tells us they're both musicians. Their living room is one of the most awkward spaces I can remember seeing on the show. The front door opens into a short hallway which, in turn, opens into the living room. To the immediate left, there's a doorway into another room (probably the dining room). Next to that there's a small red brick fireplace. Next to that, straight ahead on the left, there's a staircase. To the right, jammed into a corner of the room, are a white sofa and loveseat. They're not particularly huge, but there's so little useable space that the end of the loveseat blocks one end of the couch, and means you can't stand in front of the sofa's third cushion and sit down. There's also a bulky radiator in the corner where the two pieces of furniture meet. In addition, the small wooden coffee table is placed on the diagonal, so that much of it is hard to reach from a sitting position on the furniture, and the corner of it blocks access to the loveseat. There's a large window behind the loveseat and another one behind the sofa.

Further along the right-hand wall is the piano, and then another window. At the far end of the room are some shelves of books and CDS and records, and a TV, which is placed so far away from the upholstered furniture that I doubt you could watch it from there. There are a couple of straight-backed side chairs in the TV area, but they're placed facing the piano rather than the TV, and look almost as if they're for music practice, and not TV watching -- they certainly wouldn't be comfortable for long. But hey, maybe they're not TV people. I can't blame them. Look at all the crap on the tube. There's a smaller window above the TV. The room is divided by a chair rail; the upper part is wallpapered in a cream or pale yellow, and the lower part looks like it has some kind of coordinating navy wallpaper on it. The wood trim in the house appears to be all dark wood, except for the flooring which is much lighter hardwood. It's not a small space, but it's so awkwardly laid out and there are so many discontinuities that it's really hard to place furniture and there's a lot of wasted space. My living room is almost as awkward and it took a long time to figure out a good floor plan.