Ellen's Design Challenge Season 2: See Alexis Moran's Designs

Flip through the HGTV portfolio of modern furniture designer Alexis Moran and HGTV and DIY carpenter Jeff Devlin.

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Photo By: Ejen Chuang / AP Images

Meet Alexis Moran

Alexis Moran, a furniture designer and business owner in Orinda, California, describes her design style as modern, but acknowledges that most modern furniture lacks personality. She says she strives to infuse bold character into her designs and loves to showcase special aspects of each piece of material, whether it’s natural or industrial. She finds a lot of beauty in natural materials and composition and typically works in wood and concrete. She also works in glass, metals, and plastics.

Alexis + Jeff

Alexis is paired up with HGTV and DIY Network carpenter Jeff Devlin. He'll help bring her designs from sketch to reality.

Challenge 3: China-Inspired Design

For the show's third challenge, the designers chose a china pattern and were asked to create a complementary dining table. After choosing a vacation-worthy pattern, she decides on a coastal-style table with a modern twist.

Challenge 3: Checkerboard Legs

To create an end-grain detail on the table's legs, Alexis and Jeff stack wooden blocks onto metal supports.

Challenge 3: The Assembly

Alexis and Jeff add the table legs to the simple wood top.

Challenge 3: The Finished Design

The finished dining table features a whitewashed detail on the underside of the top and legs.

Challenge 3: The Designer Takes the Stage

Alexis presents her design to the judges, showing the china pattern that inspired her dining table.

Challenge 3: Inspired Design

The table is set with the china that inspired the design.

Challenge 3: Leg Detail

The outside of the legs feature the end-grain detail, while the inside of the legs are whitewashed.

Challenge 3: Goodbye, Alexis!

Alexis defends her design to the judges, but they felt she didn't go far enough with her dish-inspired dining table. She was the third designer to be eliminated.

Challenge 2: Outdoor Design

For the show's outdoor design challenge, Alexis was assigned poolside seating. Her take on the lounge chair? A low-slung concrete version. Here, she works on the mold for the chair.

Challenge 2: The Construction

Carpenter Jeff Devlin uses air hose to blow away the fragments of concrete where the wooden frame was removed from the concrete chaise lounge.

Challenge 2: The Finished Design

As seen on Ellen's Design Challenge, Alexis created this concrete chaise lounge for the show's outdoor challenge.

Challenge 2: Lounge Detail

Here, a close lok at the design shows off the wave details molded into the curvy lounge chair.

Challenge 2: The Judges' Take

While the concept and execution of this piece impressed the judges, it lacked the comfort the panel craved in a lounge chair.

Challenge 1: LA-Inspired Bed

Inspired by the skyline view from her Los Angeles hotel, Alexis opts to create a simple frame with a skyline-inspired detail for the show's bed challenge. Here, Alexis and Jeff work to create a smooth, round headboard.

Challenge 1: The Finished Bed

Alexis used an oxidation process to create a matte black finish on the walnut frame without a stain, allowing some of the natural grain to show through.

Challenge 1: Detail

A gold leaf detail echos the LA skyline, and provides a metallic contrast to the frame's matte black finsh.

Challenge 1: The Judging

Judge Sean Yashar examines the headboard detail on the bed created by designer Alexis Moran and carpenter Jeff Devlin.

Ellen's Design Challenge