That was always my frustration with so many of these shows, because design is not an ambush... it's a relationship. You have to know how people move and live and work to be able to design for them.

It's not about doing over the living room of someone who has bad taste in color. This is about restoring historic buildings and instilling pride in a community, which can be done through designing new public spaces and social gathering spots.

But instead of that stuff you get relationships with people and neighbors that you would never get in a city. People in small towns are a lot more open.

You forget how many people watch TV until you come into a town like this. Everybody knows you, and I'm always humbled, especially when there are 500 little kids who all have their hair done like yours and want to be designers.

I'm so used to talk-show hosts just giving you a sound bite and not really being interested.

I had the idea for the show like a year and a half, two years ago. And it was all about the things that I didn't like about TV. I was trying to create a positive solution for it. And it actually worked.

When East meets West, amazing design happens. L'Alahambra rug is a marriage of the clean line and simplicity of Western graphic design meets the complexity and beauty of Eastern pattern.