One Sandy Hook Couple’s Leap Of Faith

Results In A New Look Inside Their Home

By Shannon Hicks

Homeowners can have some pretty scary things invade their homes. Termites, mold, ants… it’s always worrisome when dealing with something new or uninvited within the home.

But what about when interior decorators move in and take over for 48 hours?

That’s what happened last week for Sheri and David Legeret of Sandy Hook, who opened their house to a team of decorators and two people from their past. The group moved in to redecorate a former family room, without any input from the Legerets, and all of it was filmed for an episode of Style Network’s Guess Who’s Coming to Decorate?

The show, which airs Sunday evenings at 10 pm, shows what happens when host Tyler Harcott brings a team of decorators and someone from a homeowner’s past — former friends, boyfriends or girlfriends, and even family members who have fallen out of touch — into a home and allows the “mystery decorator” to decide how to redo a room of the home.

Sheri Legeret was online about five weeks ago when she came across an invitation to homeowners in the tri-state area who would be interested in being on the show. She and her husband, along with their son Trevor, moved into Sandy Hook last July.

“Growing up, it’s always been interesting to see what people do with their family rooms,” Mrs Legeret said this week. “A lot of my friends grew up in ranch-style homes and it’s always been interesting to see what families do with that downstairs room.

“I had given [David] creative control over this room when we moved in, and he turned it into a shrine,” Mrs Legeret said this week, sitting on the couch on the room that had been redecorated by one of her bridesmaids, Brenda Mueller, and the bridesmaid’s ex-boyfriend, Andy Wolf, along with the Guess Who’s Coming to Decorate? decorators.

“It was a shrine to Jaws, the movie,” she continued. “The walls were painted the color of the water, there was a poster — it was everything Jaws. He just loves that movie.”

“I loved the room like that,” Mr Legeret countered, smiling at his wife with a look that said this was not the first time the subject had been discussed between the two of them.

So Sheri filled out an application and then a few weeks later heard from the show’s producers, who wanted details about the couple, their home and a short list of five family members and friends. Producers generally use that short list to interview friends and family, and come up with names that the homeowners may not have thought out. This is what gives the homeowners more to look forward to: What will be done to their home, and who will be creating the design scheme?

Fortunately the two people who joined the decorators from Guess Who’s Coming To Decorate? are both artistic, which helped when it came to redesigning the family room. The Legerets didn’t have much time to mentally prepare for the room’s redecoration. Mrs Legeret heard from one of the show’s producers Elizabeth Kover, just days before the design team arrived on May 3.

“I think they liked the idea that these two were artistic,” said Mrs Legeret of the show’s decision to go with Brenda Mueller and Andy Wolf. “I’m sure there was a longer list of who they could have chosen, but I think they really like the idea of an artistic couple.

“[Brenda and Andy] are still good friends,” added Mrs Legeret. “They got over their past to do this for us.”

Mr Wolf not only had to put aside his past feelings for Ms Mueller, he also had to be flown in to participate in the project. These days Mr Wolf is living in Amsterdam.

When the design team and camera crew arrived, the Legerets disappeared. The show put them up overnight at the Danbury Marriott and during each day the couple sat for videotaped interviews, which will be incorporated into the show.

“We couldn’t see what was going on here, but they wanted to know what we thought might be going on,” Mr Legeret explained.

The room is now designed to offer four areas — an area to watch television and movies, an area to listen to or play music, a bar area (behind which Trevor’s toys can also be kept out of sight), and an area in front of a fireplace to just relax.

While the Legerets were away from their home, the decorators built an entertainment center and shelves for the family’s videos (and some of David’s favorite pieces from his Jaws collection), created artwork to hang over the fireplace, painted a zebra pattern onto the wall in the room’s music area, added dimension to another wall area by putting blocks of wood onto the wall, created lamps to separate the TV area from the music area, and built cornices for windows and over the sliding door leading to the backyard. The room now has strong blocks of red, black, yellow, and blue.

“We just treated this like a playroom before, but now we can really entertain much more comfortably,” Mrs Legeret said this week.

The episode featuring the house in Sandy Hook will air in January.

“Apparently they’re doing all of their filming now for next season, and they’ll do all the editing over the summer,” Mrs Legeret said.

“I love this place. I love what they did with it,” said Mr Legeret, who was sitting on a new Ikea easy chair. Called a Kimme, the chair looks like an oversized inverted bucket. For the Legerets’ room, the designers used a clear chair and placed a light underneath it. It’s a cool chair, but Mr Legeret says sitting in it takes a little getting used to.

“They’re a very rock n’ roll couple,” said on-site producer Mitchell Rosenbaum. “They were a lot of fun, and their love of music really comes through in this room.

“The taping went very well,” continued Mr Rosenbaum, who was in Sandy Hook for both days of the show’s work. “They were very excited, and seemed happy with the results.”

In an online interview for The Style Network, Guess Who’s Coming to Decorate? host Tyler Harcott says his favorite part of the show is the reunion aspect, not necessarily the decorating.

“I like getting to know the backstory: Why did people go their separate ways? Why did they lose touch if this person had been such a good friend? The thing that’s most exciting is the reveal. The room is secondary to me,” he said. “It’s that instant when you see the mystery guest come around the corner. …I think these things can be stressful, so I try to incorporate some humor or levity into the situation.

“At the end of the day, if I can make them laugh a little, I’ve done our job,” he continued.

“It was a leap of faith,” admitted Mr Legeret, “to let strangers come into our house to do what they wanted for two days. But I’m happy. I like what they’ve done with it.”