This is a quiz we give all our celebrity designers and guests. It is based on James Lipton’s Questions from Inside the Actors Studio on Bravo. So… have a giggle and take a personal tour through the minds of our specialists (and now your best design friends)!

Tom Zemon’s Answers:

What is your favorite design show?

I love the design challenge shows – it’s great fun to compare my own ideas with those of the contestants and to see who’s “got the right stuff”. As far as individual shows, Candace Olsen is my hands down favorite – always an elegant delicious result and all done without any pretense.

What one tool for design can you not live without?

It’s nearly impossible to say – but things usually begin with a paint wheel. It helps to look at a full spectrum of possibilities and begin to narrow things down through a series of broad strokes and more subtle concepts. My second choice would be a freshly sharpened pencil – with a sturdy eraser

What color turns you on?

I tend toward creating rooms with a cohesive look and do my best with masculine spaces – so chocolates, fully saturated grays, and other tones within that palette excite me the most.

What design style turns you off?

I don’t enjoy conventional designs all that much. When I get a client from the upper east side – who’s got impeccable taste – it can represent a good payday, but it’s usually not as much fun as a client who’s got a bit of a sense of humor

What is your favorite room to decorate?

I think that the bedroom is my favorite room. I love the intimacy of the space and creating something for somebody where they are going to be the most raw, the most vulnerable, and ultimately the most themselves.

What vintage item are you a sucker for at antique stores or flea markets?

Old beds that are in disrepair can usually be made in to something beautiful. If the foot board or the rails are in disrepair you can easily get rid of them, inexpensively replace what’s structurally necessary, and have the bedding cover those areas.

What is your current favorite Green Design product?

It’s a completely unglamorous answer, but I think our biggest challenge lies in area debris removal. Every time I renovate a space, there are huge amounts of waste – and all of it gets mixed together. How can we be so conscientious about putting our soda cans in a separate bag from our milk cartons and yet when a space is renovated, a building is demolished, or even when one of those big corporate trade shows come to an end – everything gets bulldozed in to a pile and put in dumpsters. I would love to see a way for us to begin handling the disposal of large debris with some thought toward recycling.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

I would eventually love to produce a design show. I have a couple in mind that I think would be great – you want to produce it?

What profession would you not like to do?

I don’t think I would last too long as a NYC cabbie…

If Design Heaven exists what does your room look like?

A very big bed and lots of antlers on the wall…