CREATING SOMETHING MO'NIQUE STAR STYLE ON THE CHEAP -- AND QUICK.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

Many women find actress Mo'Nique an inspiration for fabulous big-girl style, with her neat coif, her perfect manicure and her unapologetic way of showing off her ample figure.

But instead of browsing her closet or following her to a salon, Style Network has focused on Mo'Nique's Tarzana house for an episode of ``My Celebrity Home,'' which presents a star's special room and re-creates it on a $3,000 budget in another home.

During the taping of next week's episode, Mo'Nique walked the crew through her ground floor, showing off the Faberge egg in her living room and the saltwater aquarium built into a hallway. The tour ended at her recently redecorated dining room, which features a coffee-brown modern table with crisp lines surrounded by a high-back tufted banquette upholstered in a hot-sauce-red chenille and strewn with silk pillows.

A white upholstered chair is at the head of the table, a large leaning mirror sits next to the banquette, and a table in the corner holds a small selection of family photos. Over the banquette, a large abstract painting grabs the eye, and the opposite wall features two sculptures she bought in Africa. A drum lampshade in ivory silk hangs above the table, and the stone tile floor is warmed by an area rug.

``Do it your way, the way you feel, the way you want, and make it feel good to you,'' she purred at the camera. ``Remember: When it's your home, there's no rules, baby.''

Mo'Nique perspective

During a pause in the taping, the star of BET's ``The Parkers'' and author of the new cookbook ``Skinny Cooks Can't Be Trusted'' began frying chicken wings for her family. The Baltimore native said she wouldn't want to appear in a show that does nothing more than showcase household finery, a la ``Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous.''

``I felt like it's almost like `nyah, nyah' -- you know what I'm saying? So when I did decide to do this, I said, `Let me let people know it wasn't always like this.' We never tell them what it was. Only, `Here's what it's like now.' So, let me tell you about my kitchen set that was $99 -- and I was proud of that kitchen set. And let me tell you about when I had goldfish instead of the big saltwater tank.

``I enjoyed it because I could put my spin on it. It wasn't just like, `Look what I have.' Let me tell you, baby, you can have it, too, and do it on your budget, and it can be beautiful.''

Turning the table

Achieving something ``beautiful'' for ``My Celebrity Home'' is the job of designer Mark Montano, seamstress Kelly Nishimoto and carpenter Peter Marr. It's no small task, given that Mo'Nique's massive table alone could eat up the budget.

Between takes, Marr browsed in Mo'Nique's dining room, making mental notes about proportions, materials and colors. He already was thinking about how to build the banquette and planning the tasks he and his crew would accomplish in two work days. Even as he was admiring her squares of textured wallpaper in a metallic pewter and copper finish, he was musing about paint treatments that would create a comparable effect.

``The original way is always the best, but sometimes we don't have the budget for it,'' Marr said. ``Sometimes you have to make it look exactly the same without the money it takes to make it look exactly the same. And that's where the skill and the fun get involved.''

Later that week, Marr, Montano, Nishimoto and crew were hard at work in the Lancaster home of David and Jameen Fitzgerald, who had expressed a desire to add color to their bland dining room.

``If you take the two most stressful jobs in the world, which is creating TV and running a construction crew -- and getting everything done on time and on budget -- nothing's more fun than that,'' Marr said, smiling.

In the driveway, they wished away raindrops as they were covering the banquette, while Nishimoto's assistant pressed the ruby drapery panels in the kitchen. After consulting with Jameen and considering both the look of the adjacent rooms and the orange-peel surface of the walls, they settled on a solid paint in a muted mustard shade.

With three small windows breaking up the wall behind the banquette, the single dominant piece of art was replaced by three stretched panels of colorful fabric. The large table awaited assembly.

``The most interesting challenge is trying to squeeze celebrity style into a room that may not be similar in any way _ trying to get those same techniques, trying to get the same look for a price,'' Montano said.

``Celebrities get a lot of things for free. They can spend $2,000 on a mirror; most of America can't. We want to show them ways to get that look without going overboard. When you see a room in a magazine or you see a celebrity's home, you can get that look. It may not be exactly the same, but you can get it pretty close.''

Reality checklist

There were corners cut here and there. Instead of the large mirror with its sculpted wood frame, the Fitzgeralds wound up with a sheet of plywood stained dark brown with strips of molding and square peel-and-stick mirror tiles in the center. And the illusion of Mo'Nique's coved ceiling was achieved with molding surrounding chocolate brown paint.

Other concessions were made to meet Jameen's needs. She chose to keep her existing light fixture, the area rug went over wall-to-wall carpeting, and they selected a more subtle cinnamon-colored chenille and spared the banquette's tufting buttons, which Jameen felt made it seem too ``old '70s diner.''

``We don't want people to surrender to the designer,'' Montano said. ``Everyone has their own opinion, and we have to leave this house in a way that they're going to love it. And that's what makes this show different. It's not all about my opinion as a designer. We really take into consideration what we see in the rest of the house.''

This honeymoon isn't over

A couple of weeks later, Jameen still was delighted with her new dining room (which included china, stemware and flatware from Mo'Nique) and was looking forward to serving holiday meals and hosting a girls'-night-out gathering of friends.

``My dining area is complete,'' she said. ``Now I feel like I'm officially an adult.''

It's more than just the cost that distinguishes Mo'Nique's dining room from the Fitzgeralds'.

Mo'Nique's 1-year-old twins, David and Jonathan, are welcome in any room in her home, although she admits to wincing when they sail through the dining room in their walkers.

But for Jameen's daughter, Dorian, 5, and son, David, 4, her living room and dining room are off-limits.

``She can afford to have somebody come in and clean the carpets every time they drop something, and I don't have that luxury,'' Jameen said.

``So they've got to stay out of here until they're old enough -- which will probably be another 13 to 14 years,'' she added with a laugh.

Valerie Kuklenski, [phone]

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MY CELEBRITY HOME

What: Home decorating series in which a star's room provides the inspiration for a makeover in another house.

When: 9 p.m. Wednesday.

Where: Style Network.

CAPTION(S):

7 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Her place, your way

Get Mo'Nique's celebrity decor - on a budget

(2 -- color) Above: Mo'Nique and the ``My Celebrity Home'' crew work on a scene in her Tarzana dining room.

(3 -- color) Left: Tthe crew compares Mo'Nique's Tarzana space to the Lancaster room where they will re-create it.

(4 -- 7 -- color) Below, from left: Designer Mark Montano upholsters a couch made on-site during the taping, seamstress Kelly Nishimoto makes pillow covers for a couch, carpenter Peter Marr drills holes for shelving, and Nishimoto dons a Viking helmet -- to Marr's laughter.

Photos by John Lazar and David Sprague/Staff Photographers