I don’t know where or how Bravo finds the houses and their respective owners for Jeff Lewis and his team to remodel on this show, but they have certainly picked some winners. Each one of them has needed the Lewis touch, and he has pleasantly surprised me with, not only his amazing skills as a designer, but the deft and wit with which he deals with the family of the week. I can only assume that it takes someone like Jeff, with all of his own personal dysfunction, to take on these very interesting people. He has demonstrated, time and again, that he is compassionate, caring and keenly ironic, all at the same time.
In the past couple of weeks, Lewis and company have moved in with and remodeled the homes of families and couples who are obviously in crisis. We’ve seen a married couple who were trying to make the husband’s house become their home, by trying to inject some of the wife’s personal style and personality. She was in distress over the fact that she didn’t feel she was at home because her husband, who had owned the home long before they were married, refused to give up the ambiance of his bachelor pad.
On another occasion, Jeff, Jenny and Zoila came to the rescue of an engaged couple who had invited her widowed mother to live with them. The mom had tried to remake their home into a place where she could live with her memories, leaving all of them feeling both cramped and resentful. This week, we met Adam and Yvonne, long time friends who were exploring the idea of becoming a couple and, perhaps, living together. Well, that was what Yvonne envisioned. Adam was more than a little bit wary of the relationship and was fighting the notion of her moving in with every fiber of his body.
Eclectic doesn’t even describe what Adam considered his design style. I don’t know much about interior decorating or design, but I’m fairly certain that there isn’t a book out there which includes a chapter on male genitalia. You see, Adam likes to collect and display penises. He has them everywhere, like artwork on the wall which lights up and flashes silhouettes of penises. He also has a curio cabinet chock full of carvings and sculptures of the male member. He just can’t understand how Yvonne, not to mention Jeff and Jenni, don’t appreciate his tastes. He considers himself quirky, everyone else believes he has escaped from the asylum.
Adam’s house was full of oddities, like a robot/clown, that stood about four feet tall, resided in the master bedroom and would come to life when anyone moved, something that kept Jeff and Jenni awake most of one night. Adam and his eccentricities didn’t stop there. He had a stuffed fox on his coffee table, which, thankfully, was sold to one of the movers for $50. This strange and pompous man told Jeff that he hadn’t bought a television for the living room because there were new and better ones coming out every three months, and he was afraid that whatever he purchased would be considered a technological relic before he even got it home. He did, however, have two televisions in the bedroom because that’s where the couple did most of their entertaining.
To say that he was disrespectful to Yvonne would be an understatement. His comments and sarcasm towards her made you wonder what she really saw in him in the first place. He asked her, at one point, that if he agreed to the makeover, would she stop bitching. It didn’t end there. When the couple, together with Jeff and Jenni, went furniture shopping, Adam made it clear to everyone within earshot that he was in no way interested in anything Yvonne was, and declared, loudly and proudly, that this was his house, after all.
What Adam didn’t realize though, was that not only had he met his match with Jeff Lewis, but was actually a very distant second to the master of the put down. Jeff saw right through him and harped at him at every opportunity, about just how selfish and unfeeling Adam was. This nasty bow-tie wearing little man thought that he knew everything, until Jeff and company proved him wrong.
The remodel went well, despite Adam’s attempts to micromanage every inch of the work. Jeff found a new home for roboclown, bought a television for the living room, ripped up tons of tile, replacing it with laminate, and actually turned the disaster into a beautiful and livable space. Adam was pleasantly surprised and pleased with the finished product, as was Yvonne. She, however, was presented with another, not quite so pleasant surprise, delivered by her friend. While Yvonne dropped some not so subtle hints about moving in with Adam, he decided that he wasn’t ready to go quite that far. He announced, once again, that this was home, new and improved, but decidedly not Yvonne-ready.
Watching this exchange, Jeff asked Yvonne if she would like a ride home. She should have taken him up on his offer right then and there. Adam made it quite clear, to all of us, that he was the king gnome of his castle, and there would be no permanent female residents allowed. Jeff may have redone the house, but that relationship is beyond repair. I’m giving it about two weeks before the house is given it’s finishing touches and that those penises are lovingly scattered all around the place.
Empress
realhousewifeofaiken 
Haha Empress … Gnome of his domain. LOL.
I had at first felt badly for Yvonne but as the show wore on I was more grossed out by her than by Adam. She came off as a needy woman past her LA shelf-life who just wanted to live in a nice house with a safe guy taking care of the bills. She continually commented about the house, not her love of Adam “This is so much nicer than my place.”. Who wheedles and whines publically about moving in after only five months of not-so-serious dating? A desperate woman who has nothing else going on – that’s who. I think “Getting Dumped” is pretty much Yvonne’s middle name.
Adam is a strange guy. Jeff implied he thought Adam was not being honest about his sexuality. All those fertility erections and the carved decor told me this guy really wants to live on an island so he can run naked in the jungle and dance around the fire. That is not a man who is interested in taking on an aging piece of arm candy.
It was also no surprise that Adam hated the shopping trip. He was hoping that they would shop at Pier One Imports and Toys R Us so he further indulge in his Luke Skywalker in a grass skirt fantasy. Adam might even evision himself frolicking on the beach in the gold bikini. No Yvonne in this fantasy. She’d probably be happy enough as long as she gets the house.
Yvonne really did have needy and desperate written all over her, didn’t she? I got the feeling that she has played this game before, with any number of guys who could provide her with food and shelter. She said that she and Adam had been friends for over 7 years, so he may be very well aware of a history we didn’t see. He was an absolute cad, but his caution about her moving in might have been based on a pattern of Yvonne’s flopping from one man’s house to another’s. She did look like she had a aura of world weariness.
ITA about his envisioning himself as “Luke Skywalker in a grass skirt” – he was one odd duck. 🙂
BTW.. Great recap. It actually made me watch the show. 🙂
Thanks. Now you have your own excuse (you know I love my excuses for Bravo watching)
The Empress made me do it. 😀
We all need an occasional excuse and that’s as good as any I’m going to come up with 😉
Then they both should just shit or get off the pot. So to speak. I can see he’s set in his ways and he ought to just tell her so and that moving in together is never going to happen. Both seem pretty weak to me.
I found this photo of Adam at vacation camp.
http://www.dlisted.com/2012/05/02/caption-contest-may-2nd
Adam Latham’s photography:
http://adamlathamphotography.com/
Weird but lots of energy
http://belairphotography.com/home.html
http://lathamarchitectural.com/
He looks a whole lot cuter here: https://plus.google.com/116790756380800468755/posts
Guessing the bowtie thing was just a put-on for the cameras.
And here’s Yvonne: https://plus.google.com/106064379762842411567/posts
Big surprise. She’s an actress, comedian, and yoga teacher. Like everyone else in L.A. Add spiritual advisor and life coach and you’ve got pretty much everyone in L.A.
http://www.myspace.com/ystarcomedy
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4208734/
http://www.facebook.com/ylavallee
And …. she was on Millionaire Matchmaker.
Too bad she threw away a good education and a real career (B.S. in chemistry; B.A. in applied ecology, worked as an environmental engineer and taught students in environmental ed).
I am so sick of this Bravo shit. That whack-job life coach/spirit guide woman with the messy house and the two totally great daughters. She’s an actress and a singer. Actually a pretty good singer. Cool older daughter is also an actress.
I’m pretty sure the IT casting director calls up local agents to ask if they have any clients who would like to be on the show. Most “normal” people would never tolerate the intrusion. Entertainers, especially aging ones, will gladly trade privacy & self-respect for 10 minutes of screen time. (Apparently.)
That’s fine by me – I’m enjoying the hell out of this show. 🙂
I just don’t see why they need to make up goofy stories about who these people are and what they do. It is like they think we are stupid. Actually, they might be right. After all, I am wasting time and brain cells on their stupid shows. But anyway…
Adam really is a photographer and Yvonne really does teach yoga, but she is primarily an actress. I wouldn’t enjoy the show any the less if they’d just said that Kelly (the whack-job hoarder) is an actress and singer and that her daughters are actresses. Instead, I feel like they tried to put one over on me. Maybe they should just call these shows semi-reality. I didn’t for one minute buy the idea that these two were ever romantically involved. She showed no warmth or affection for him whatsoever.