Deana Carter Masters Bathroom 101

Country songbird Deana Carter recently had the opportunity to try another career on for size: home designer. Carter, 37, was one of several musicians (including Brad Paisley and Jo Dee Messina) employed by Country Music Television for the series, Ultimate Country Home, which airs its final episode this Saturday at 6 pm/ET. The premise is simple: CMT purchased a house in Tennessee and assigned each artist a specific room to "make over" in their own style. Once the remodeling is complete, the home will be given away to one lucky couple. Carter, of course, isn't eligible to win the house, but she did walk away with the secrets behind designing the ultimate master bath.

TV Guide Online: How did you get involved with Ultimate Country Home?
Deana Carter: I had heard it was coming around and that kind of show is just my bag. I love Trading Spaces, Changing Rooms, all those home shows. I originally wanted to host it, but with my tour schedule things didn't work out. So CMT said 'Why don't you be one of our first featured artists and open the whole series?'

TVGO: Did you have any say in choosing the room you'd be designing?
Carter: No, the producers picked it. They did a great job looking at the personality of the artist and matching them with the room they'd be able to put their signature spin on. So the master bath was perfect for me. It's enormous; I walked in and said: 'Oh my god, I think my whole college dorm room was this big.'

TVGO: As a design newbie, how did you approach the project?
Carter: I had a couple of meetings with the show's design team to discuss the room. They showed me what the options could be and asked me to think about what I would do if I had a dream bathroom. I decided I wanted it to be masculine and feminine. You don't want it to give you a cavity, but at the same time you want to have a little haven. I wanted it to be a barbershop boudoir with a spa feeling to it, but not to the point where the guy feels he has to wear heels! I also wanted the room to have funky furniture, so it wasn't just sinks and toilets.

TVGO: Are you happy with the finished result?
Carter: I love it! It's got natural lighting from a skylight, but we also put a "candleir" over the bathtub so you can light a bunch of candles; it brings a whole romantic vibe to the room. The sinks are all pedestal sinks — they look like they're from the Prohibition era.

TVGO: Does it resemble what your own ultimate master bath would look like?
Carter: It would be very similar to this one, but you wouldn't want to just redo the design, you'd want to reapply what you did. I'm studying real estate investing right now so I can buy some properties in L.A. and refurbish them and rent them out because I love it.

TVGO: So in your now expert opinion, which is the most important item in any master bath?
Carter: Definitely the tub, because even if you don't take a lot of baths, you need to feel guilty about that. You have to walk into that bathroom and say 'Damn, I need to take a bath.'

TVGO: And now that you have a bathroom under your belt, are there any other rooms you want to try your hand at designing?
Carter: I would love to really dig into a studio. I do a lot of recording at home, and I think it would be awesome to come up with a cool room for that. A kitchen is also good. I'm a wine connoisseur so I dream of the perfect wine rack. It would be great to have your perfect dream entertainment kitchen. You don't even need a stove, it's all about the wine and cheese.