Dunlap said the items up for sale and auction are repurposed donations from the community and rescues from properties slated for demolition. "It's not like putting on a golf tournament — there's always going to be something different," she said. "We always find new items every year and the hunt is half the fun."

The now two-story, four-bedroom home features an elevated office space for Bless' growing woodworking business, WoodyBoard, which specializes in high-end ocean décor and custom wooden gates. With "62" emblazoned in stainless steel on the outside wall and the office's ocean-facing windows, Bless created a post where he could watch the surf between the line of beachfront homes.

Newport Beach home tour visitors on May 15 will help determine the outcome of the TV series "Showhouse Showdown" where two local interior designers head to head to create the perfect dream home. The new program by HGTV and Stone & Co. Entertainment will air 12 episodes beginning late summer, each featuring two local designers.

Editor's note: This corrects the location of Fleur de Lys in the photo captions. What's the next best thing to bathing in treasure? Try bathing in a tub adorned with 46,000 glittering Swarovski crystals. Newport Beach resident Lori Gardner, 44, designed the Diamond Bathtub, a 19th century-style clawfoot tub bedazzled with thousands of pink crystals — a recognition of breast cancer research.

Rona Graf, an interior designer whose contemporary style is behind the highly popular Men's Billabong suite at La Casa del Camino Hotel in Laguna Beach, will open her first design studio to the public next week. Grace Blu Designs Inc. is a partnership between Graf and Stephanie Fryer, a kitchen and bath design specialist who joined the company last year.

For three years, Joe Lanas, 65, has taken home the silver medal in the wheelchair race at the annual Senior Games hosted by Orange County Activity Directors' Assn. "I thought I had left them all behind," Lanas said Wednesday of the 11 a.m. race that had senior citizens competing neck and neck toward the finish line of a short strip set up on the north side of the Orange County Fairgrounds.