The first house is a 1927 French cottage-style home with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and 1,900 square feet. Similar homes range in value from $480k-1.2 million, so there’s a huge range. With five minutes to examine the house, the teams check out the small, dark rooms to assess the value. Team Jonathan prices the home at $699k and Team Drew guesses $759k. The actual value of the home is $845k. Team Drew wins the assessment and decides to renovate this home and give the mystery house to Team Jonathan.

Across town, Team Jonathan finds a 1923 duplex conversion with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and 1,900 square feet. The home is valued a bit less than Team Drew’s house, so there is certainly room for improvement. Jonathan tells them to work on the kitchen, living room, and dining room. Francis has some nutty idea about swooshing the floor upwards onto the wall in the dining room, so I look forward to his imminent elimination. Inez takes control of the kitchen, with new countertops and cabinets. Torche wants to spruce up the fireplace, but Jonathan cautions that the existing fireplace is historic and expensive and NO HULK SMASH!

At Team Drew’s house, the designers are renovating the kitchen, laundry room, and living room. Monica takes control of the budget while Christy tackles the laundry room and Brett claims the kitchen as his own. The kitchen gets new appliances, countertops, floors, and windowpanes. This doesn’t leave much money for a stackable washer and dryer in the laundry room, and Christy can’t plan her space without a decision on appliances. David is working on the fireplace and the staging for the living room. Monica, however, plans her own color palette for the living room, so…huh.

It’s Day Two, and someone gave Francis a color swatch book and he plans a dark and dramatic dining room in a small space without much natural light. Mark is installing an all-new wood floor. Having busted the budget on wood flooring, Inez settles on economical concrete countertops in the kitchen.  Torche’s fireplace is slow going, but it looks nifty with reclaimed wood.

Jonathan is impressed with Inez’s kitchen, but he’s not a fan of concrete countertops since you have to keep sealing them. Or, you just accept the stains as they come along (glances at wine stains on the concrete dining table and swears they don’t bother her in the least…). Then, Jonathan eggs on Francis’s insanity by cautioning him against boring color choices and a vague interest in whatever art piece Francis has planned. Oh my gawd, Francis has a giant pink, grey, orange, and white drip painting that takes the room back to the 1980s. *shudder*

Team Drew is focusing on quality craftsmanship, so Brett is swapping out frosted windowpanes for clear glass. David is building a fireplace mantle, and he’s going for perfection that is hard to accomplish on a tight timeframe. Monica is painting the living room, and Christy is nowhere in the laundry room because she still doesn’t know about the stackable washer and dryer. Just buy her a stupid stackable washer and dryer already! Aaaand Monica lets Christy know that not only is there no money for stackables because they blew the budget on the kitchen, there’s no money for a washer and dryer at all. Drew is concerned because the new laundry room plan means there is less storage than was there before.

It’s time to cut one member from each team. Jonathan says Torche and Francis are safe, and Marc and Inez are up for elimination because they have not creatively wowed him to date. Drew is looking for a well-rounded team member, and puts Christy and Monica on the chopping block for messing up the budget for the laundry room. Ultimately, he cuts Christy since the laundry room was her responsibility and she failed to fight for what the room really needed. Jonathan sends Inez home because she’s just blah.

Next week, Jonathan’s team has no teamwork and the teams finish the houses.