DJ, record producer, rapper, and now home designer (!) Jonathan H. Smith, aka Lil Jon, is known for taking people out of their comfort zone on his HGTV home renovation show, “Lil Jon Wants To Do What?”

“We love walking into somebody’s house and turning it upside down,” he says.

In the Season 2 episode “Remix Renovation,” he and his design partner, Anitra Mecadon, make good on that claim by reimagining a boring, old basement for homeowners Amy, Dalan, and their three boys. It even includes a DJ station and dance floor—something Lil Jon knows a lil something about.

Would you hire Lil Jon for your own home? Check out what he does with some interesting new takes and tips on home design.

An indoor play zone could save your furniture

Amy and Dalan’s kids love jumping on the furniture, pelting one another with sofa pillows and just basically being little boys.

Lil Jon suggests that since there’s a massive amount of space in the basement, why not make one of the rooms a place where jumping on the furniture and climbing the walls are encouraged?

Mecadon is inspired.

“It’s a complete play gym with monkey bars, foam pits, climbing wall, you name it, we got it,” she declares, envisioning the space. “Total place for kids to be kids. ”

Lil Jon sums it up: “They can tear up this room and not tear up the rest of the basement.”

If you can’t raise the ceiling, make it fun to look at

There’s a dropped, acoustic-paneled ceiling in the basement, and Lil Jon has some thoughts about it.

“When it looks like an office space from 1985, it’s got to go,” he says. “Why can’t we raise it?”

He gets a reality check pretty quickly.

“It’s impossible,” the contractor insists. “Ductwork, electrical, plumbing, drains, everything’s below the 8-foot mark.”

When they remove the ugly acoustic panels, they see exactly what he means.

But Mecadon comes up with a workaround: She suggests they use hanging soffits on the ceiling to cover up those pipes and wires. She designs them to be intersecting circles at different heights to hide all the messy stuff, and they become a fun visual feature in addition to a practical one.

Peel-and-stick wallpaper can look like a hand-painted mural

Lil Jon wants the DJ room to have a graffiti vibe, so he hires an “OG graffiti artist” from Atlanta to freestyle all sorts of colorful designs on the walls.

But not all of us have the resources to do that, or the stomach to paint over it if/when the room is used for another purpose.

A great alternative is peel-and-stick wallpaper murals. There are some great graffiti options online, and they can be easily replaced when it’s time to give the room a different vibe.

Don’t go overboard with yellow

While Lil Jon is out shooting a video, he leaves Mecadon to sort out a color scheme.

“Jon wanted a yellow ceiling, right?” she acknowledges. “But I hate yellow. There’s a psychological thing that happens with the color yellow. More people fight in a yellow kitchen than any other color kitchen. In fact, one day, I was painting my wall yellow, and do you know what happened? I was mad. I was angry. Because I freaking hate it.”

So rather than follow Lil Jon’s lead directly, she puts her own spin on his request.

“Instead of doing the whole thing yellow, we just do a funky ray of light and have other colors come down,” she explains.

Her assistants are a little puzzled as she tries to explain her vision, but once they find a way to balance the yellow with other colors, everyone is thrilled—including Lil Jon when he returns.

Make prefab cabinets and shelves look like built-ins with paint

Mecadon wants walls of bookcases in the book nook, but to have custom cabinets built for the space would be expensive. So she finds some inexpensive, prefab kitchen cabinets and lines them up against the walls. Then she installs shelves above them and paints them all the same color.

“Nailed it and saved a lot of money,” Lil Jon says when he sees her clever hack.

And he’s right. The whole thing looks totally custom.

When all is done and dusted, Lil Jon and Mecadon’s basement makeover has added a kids’ gaming room, family gaming room, an adult lounge, a kids’ playroom, gym, an office/guest room, and a book nook/library.

“This is unbelievable,” Amy says. “Our boys are going to flip! I don’t think the kids are going to ever want to leave our basement. We won’t ever want to leave the basement either!”

The post Are Lil Jon’s Home Designs as Fly as He Thinks? The Answer Is in These Pics From ‘Lil Jon Wants To Do What?’ appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

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