Woohoo! Team Drew pulls it out again!

Down a team member each, it came down to who pulled together their remodel best and added the most value. Despite what we all saw, Brett and Monica did a great job pulling the kitchen and laundry room together in the little time we had left. Brett had some issues with the backsplash, but in his defense, the counters were not installed until halfway through the last day. That gave us only hours to install and grout that backsplash.

Fortunately, my gamble on taking on the largest room in the challenge paid off! Hilary's face alone, when she saw our living room, was worth all the effort.

This was the first time in the competition that I set out to make a statement with not only my installation versatility, but design ability as well.

Time management was key in this challenge. I knew we all had to do a lot of pre-planning if we wanted to have a shot at winning. I had this room designed down to the space plan, well ahead of time.

Regardless of how well we plan, however, being able to design on the fly is crucial. The competition is so fast paced, that most of the time you have to adapt your design as you go along. As you can see in my original sketch, I planned on doing moldings below the chair rail as well. Once I started, I quickly realized that I wasn't going to have time to do that. Since it still looked great without the lower moldings, I just edited them out at the last minute.

The next one is a nail biter . . . catch up before tonight at http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/video/player/0,1000149,HGTV_32796_15241_78444-119114,00.html