For this designing woman, it's all about taking chances

That's understandable, though, considering she spent weeks in Los Angeles, with cameras documenting her every move -- from the inspired to the mortifying -- for Bravo's latest foray into reality television, Top Design. Perez-Fuentes is a graduate of Highland Park High School in Middlesex County.

"It was wicked weird," the 26-year-old interior designer says of that time. "At one point on the show I stepped in dog poop and I'm like, "There's somebody watching me wipe it from my shoe on the grass.' "

Then there are the times she catches sight of herself flashing across the TV screen in commercials for the show (which the network seems to run on a constant loop), and the ads plastered all over subway cars and buses.

"I got on the bus and I'm thinking, "Why do I have to ride the bus if I'm on the bus?' " the New York City-resident says with a laugh.

All of this is most unexpected for Perez-Fuentes, who waited until five different friends prodded her to just try out for the show.

"Everyone decided to write to me and tell me "You should go to this, you have to go to this,' " she explains. She listened to them and went, even though she only had 10 pictures of first-semester interior-design school work to show.

"Honestly, when I went to the open call, I thought, "No way on earth am I going to get this,' " she says.

That's why she was so speechless when she learned she was one of the 12 designers selected to be on the show. It was confirmation of her obsession with inside space, which she traces back to her childhood.

"I've been watching interior design on television forever," Perez-Fuentes says. "I guess interior design on TV was always a part of my life. Did I ever think I was going to be on television doing interior design? No."

While other little girls were decking their Barbie dolls out in the latest styles, she was preoccupied with designing and decorating Barbie's pad.

"I just wanted the Barbie dream house," she says. "I wouldn't even use the house sometimes, I would make Barbie lofts on top of my dresser and weird stairways out of cassette-tape boxes."

Just as her Barbie dolls appreciated her nicely laid-out loft, Perez-Fuentes believes that it's "beyond important" for people to be surrounded by an interior space that reflects their personality, lifestyle and taste.

"The effect interior space has on us is much greater than the credit we give it," she says. "We think that it really doesn't matter that much, that it's a luxury and it's something frivolous."

But it's so much more than that, she says. An exciting, beautiful and functional space, she believes, creates a happier, more productive individual. Something as simple as color has a way of transforming not only a home but a person's attitude.

"Your favorite color, even if it's purple, why shouldn't it be on your wall?" she asks. "It can make you really happy."