Budget Breakdown: A Designer Polishes Up a Lackluster Guesthouse for $54K

In February 2021, Avalon Rossi needed a project. The designer is one half of the Avi Ross Group, a mother-daughter design and real estate team that focuses on rehabbing historic properties in Southern California. Avalon was living and going to school in Los Angeles, but since classes had gone online due to the pandemic, she relocated to San Diego, where her mother had just bought a property. "I decided to use that time when I didn’t have to be in L.A. in person, and go build something for myself and live in it," she says.