Open house is brought to you by Coldwell Banker real estate. For over 100 years, Coldwell Banker have understood the value of a home. Coldwell banker, where home begins. Welcome back to open house. Next, we are in connecticut, and there is a billiards room. Welcome to our beautiful home, which we bought in 2006. We put a lot of hard work and love into it. We would like to come in and take a look at it. So lets go. Welcome to the kitchen. This is my absolute favorite room. It is the heart of the home. This is where the family spends many hours, and enjoy cooking together, watching television together, and really enjoying a great space. Here we are outside. When you want some private time and want to connect with nature, this is the best place to be. You can enjoy a margarita. When you are done, and it is time to go swimming in our beautiful infinity pool. The other side of the next two and walking trails. It is on the other side of this is a walking trail. It goes all of the way around. When you are ready to relax, this is the place to be, the master bedroom. With its sitting room when you first come in, you can in joint regioncan enjoy the light. Thenen, it is time to retire. A double, king size bed. A double king size bed. We created a masterpiece, taking in love of the art deco period and putting it into the room, recreating the period that we love so much. What man would not love this room . It is an al caponeinspired room, with a custom mahogany bar with beers on tap. If beer is not your drink of choice, you can come to our beautiful wine cellar. There is also an antique glass, separating the two wine cellars, one red, one white, but the main event on this level is right through this door. This is our theater. As you can see, it is absolutely beautiful and has everything you would want in a theater. Well, that is a wrap of the tour of our home. If you do not mind, it is time for showtime. Coming up after the break we have so much work to get done today, it is insane. Welcome back to open house. Next, Libby Langdon takes a basement from drab to fab s in just one day. Hi, i am Libby Langdon. Today, we are in a basement t tt definitely needs to move away from toys. It will be a dramatic transformation. We are doing it in one day, and it is a huge room, so i am going to stop talking to you and get started. It is no secret that we lay this out all around the television. But right now, it is squhed over year, and there is a lot of room back there. It is squished over here. Todoy, we are ending the tan ification of basements. I am bringing in color, in i am doing it in a bold way. We have so much work to get done today, it is insane. I have been whole crew standing by, and i am not going to keep them waiting i have a whole crew standing by. The first order of business, clear out the room and get everything out of here. The second order of business, get the paintball the paint on the wall and wait for it to dry. You might think i am crazy putting this bold color on the wall, but coal idea was to have these open bookcases where it will not be too overwhelming in this space but will come through. This is no longer going to be the area where the television lives. This will be a bar. This is the perfect use of an area that would otherwise be wasted space. The heavy lifting is over, and now it is time for the fun stuff. This room is about to come alive. Hard to believe this is the same remedy started in five hours ago. The same room we started in five hours ago. I am absolutely thrilled with the way it came out. I am going to take you on a tour. Basically, the way we opened up this whole space was to bring the television and the sofa more into the middle of the room, and that left some pockets where we could do some other things. Have you ever seen a television this big . It is clearly the rock star of the room. It is 80 inches. One thing to do with it is to flank it with these bookshelves. There is plenty of room for them to put all of their games away. Your kids should not really be hanging out at a bar, but a computer bar is a Perfect Place for them to get their work done. The television was there, but it is like a black hole, so this is a good focal point at the end of this long room. At the end of the day, i just wanted to create a beautiful room where the family could have fun. So i am not going to call it the basement anymore. It is now the fun room. Thats all for this weeks episode of open house. Americas Top Properties and designs. If you missed something on todays show, go to openhousetv. Com. You can join our Facebook Family or follow us on twitter, and thanks for stopping in. I will see you next week on a whole new episode of open join. From nbc news in washington, the worlds longestrunning television program, this is meet the press, with david gregory. Good sunday morning, time is nearly up before we go over the socalled fiscal cliff. Senate leaders spent the weekend working on a lastditch deal and the house comes back today for a rare sunday night session. Yesterday afternoon, in an exclusive interview, president obama sat down with me in the blue room of the white house. To discuss the way forward and his priorities for a second term. Mr. President , welcome back to meet the press. Great to be here, thank you. The obvious question are we going over the fiscal cliff . Well, i think were going to find out in the next 48 hours what congress decides to do. But i think its important for the American People to understand exactly what this fiscal cliff is. Because its actually not that complicated. The tax cuts that were introduced in 2001, 2003, 2010, those were extended and theyre all about to expire at the end of the year. So on midnight, december 31st, if congress doesnt act, then everybodys taxes go up. And for the average family, that could mean a loss of 2,000 in income. For the entire economy, that means consumers have a lot less money to make purchases, which means businesses are going to have a lot less customers, which means that theyre less likely to hire and the whole economy could slow down at a time when the economy is starting to pick up and were seeing signs of recovery in housing and employment numbers improving. So what Congress Needs to do first and foremost, is to prevent taxes from going up for the vast majority of americans. And this was a major topic of discussion throughout the campaign. What i said was, that we should keep taxes where they are for 98 of americans. 97 of small businesses. But if were serious about deficit reduction, we should make sure that the wealthy are paying a little bit more and combine that with spending cuts to reduce our deficit and put our economy on a longterm trajectory of growth. We have been talking to the republicans ever since the election was over. They have had trouble saying yes to a number of repeated offers. Yesterday i had another meeting with the leadership and i suggested to them if they cant do a comprehensive package of smart deficit reduction, lets at minimum make sure that peoples taxes dont go up. And that two Million People dont lose their unemployment insurance. And i was modestly optimistic yesterday. But we dont yet see an agreement and now the pressure is on congress to produce. If they dont, what ive said is that in the senate, we should go ahead and introduce legislation that would make sure that middle classes taxes stay where they are and there should be an up or down vote. I think theres a majority support for making sure that the middle class families are held harmless. If you go over the cliff, whats the impact in the markets . Which have been pretty confident until now that a deal would get done. Its hard to speculate on the markets. But obviously i think business and investors are going to feel more negative about the economy next year. If you look at projections of 2013, people generally felt that the economy would continue to grow, unemployment would continue to tick down, housing would continue to improve. But whats been holding us back is the dysfunction here in washington. And if people start seeing that on january 1st, this problem still hasnt been solved, that we havent seen the kind of deficit reduction that we could have had, had the republicans been willing to take the deal that i gave them, if they say that peoples taxes have gone up, which means Consumer Spending is going to be depressed, then obviously thats going to have an adverse reaction on the markets. What about automatic spending cuts . Those take effect january 1st as well. Do they have to be part of this deal . Youve got half of those cuts in defense alone. Well, the other part of the fiscal cliff is congress agreed that they would cut an additional 1. 2 trillion in spending. They put a committee together to try to come up with those numbers. They didnt figure out how to do it. And so what we now have is a situation where these automatic spending cuts go into place. Now if we have raised some revenue by the wealthy paying a little bit more, that would be sufficient to turn off whats called the sequester, these automatic spending cuts. And that also would have a better outcome for our economy longterm. But you know, so far at least, congress has not been able to get this stuff done. Not because democrats in congress dont want to go ahead and cooperate. But because i think its been very hard for Speaker Boehner and republican leader mcconnell to accept the fact that taxes on the wealthiest americans should go up a little bit. As part of an overall deficit reduction package. You talk about a dysfunction in washington. You signed this legislation setting up the fiscal cliff 17 months ago. How accountable are you for the fact that washington cant get anything done and were at this deadline again . Well i have to tell you, david, if you look at my track record over the last two years, i cut spending by over 1 trillion in 2011. I campaigned on the promise of being willing to reduce the deficit in a serious way, in a balanced approach of spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy, while keeping middleclass taxes low. I put forward a very specific proposal to do that. I negotiated with Speaker Boehner in good faith and moved more than halfway in order to achieve a grand bargain. I offered over 1 trillion in additional spending cuts. So that we would have 2 of spending cuts for every 1 of increased revenue. I think anybody objectively who has looked at this would say that you know, we have put forward not only a sensible deal, but one that has the support of the majority of the American People, including close to half of republicans. When they say Leadership Falls on you, mr. President , you dont have a role here in breaking this impasse . Youve had a tough go with congress. David, you know, at a certain point, if folks cant say yes to good offers, then i also have an obligation to the American People to make sure that the entire burden of deficit reduction doesnt fall on seniors, who are relying on medicare. I also have an obligation to make sure that families who rely on medicaid to take care of a disabled child, arent carrying this burden entirely. I also have an obligation to middle class families to make sure that theyre not paying higher taxes when millionaires and billionaires are not having to pay higher taxes. There is a basic fairness that is at stake in this whole thing that the American People understand and they listen to an entire years debate about it. They made a clear decision about the approach they prefer which is a balanced, responsible package. This rejected the notion that the economy grows best from the top down. They believe that the economy grows best from the middle class out. And at a certain point, you know, it is very important for republicans in congress to be willing to say we understand were not going to get 100 , were willing to compromise in a serious way in order to solve problems as opposed to be worrying about the next election. You said republicans have a hard time saying yes, particularly to you. Yes. What is it about you, mr. President , that you think is so hard to say yes to . Thats something youre probably going to have to ask them. Because you know, david, you follow this stuff pretty carefully. The offers that ive made to them have been so fair that a lot of democrats get mad at me. I offered to make some significant changes to our entitlement programs in order to reduce the deficit. I offered to not only 1 trillion in, over 1 trillion in spending cuts over the next ten years, but these changes would result in even more savings in the next ten years. And would solve our deficit problem for a decade. They said that their biggest priority is making sure we deal with the deficit in a serious way. But the way that theyre behaving is their only priority is making sure that the tax breaks for the wealthiest americans are protected. That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme. And at some point, think whats going to be important is that they listen to the American People. Now, the i think that over the next 48 hours my hope is that people recognize that regardless of partisan differences, our top priority has to be to make sure that taxes on middle class families do not go up. That would hurt our economy badly. We can get that done. Democrats and republicans both say they dont want taxes to go up on middle class families. Thats something we all agree on. If we can get that done, that takes a big bite out of the fiscal cliff. It avoids the worst outcomes. And were then going to have some tough negotiations in terms of how we continue to reduce the deficit, grow the economy and create jobs. If the fight comes back i want to ask you specifically about entitlements, medicare and Social Security, are you prepared in the first year of your second term, to significantly reform those two programs, to go beyond the cuts youve suggested to benefits in medicare, which your own Debt Commission suggested youd have to do if you were really going to shore up medicare at least. Are you prepared to do that in your first year of the second term . What ive said is im prepared to do everything i can to make sure that medicare and Social Security are there not just for this generation but for future generations. Youve got to talk tough to seniors. I have, one of the proposals weve made is something called chain cpi. Which sounds technical, but basically makes an adjustment in terms of how inflation is calculated for Social Security. Not something supported by aarp, but in pursuit of strengthening Social Security for the longterm, im willing to make those decisions. What im not willing to do is to have the entire burden of deficit reduction rest on the shoulders of seniors making students pay higher student loan rates, ruining our capacity to invest in things like basic research that help our economy grow. Those are the things that im not willing to do. And so did you commit to that first year of your second term, getting significant reform done. Telling congress weve got to do it. David, i want to be very clear, you are not only going to cut your way to prosperity. One of the fallacies, i think that has been promoted, is this notion that deficit reduction is only a matter of cutting programs that are really important to seniors, students, and so forth. That has to be part of the mix. But what i ran on, and what the American People elected me to do, was to put forward a balanced approach. To make sure that there are shared sacrifices. That everybody is doing a little bit more. And it is very difficult for me to say to a senior citizen, or a student, or a mom with a disabled kid, you are going to have to do with less. But were not going to ask millionaires or billionaires to do more. Thats not something, thats not an approach that the American People think is right and by the way, historically, thats not how we grow an economy. We grow an economy when folks in the middle, folks who are striving to get in the middle class, when they do well. Im asking you about timeframe. Because as you well know, as ate a secondterm president , your political capital, is limited. So what is your single priority of the second term . What is the equivalent to health care . Well there are a couple of things we need to get done. Ive said that fixing our broken immigration system is a top priority. I will introduce legislation in the first year to get that done. I think we have talked about it long enough. We know how we can fix it. We can do it in a comprehensive way that the American People support. Thats something we should get done. The second thing that weve got to do is to stabilize the economy and make sure its growing. Part of that is deficit reduction. Part of it is also making sure that were investing for example in rebuilding our infrastructure. Which is broken. And if we are putting people back to work rebuilding our roads, our bridges, our schools in part paying for it by some of these broader longterm deficit reduction measures that need to take place, that will grow the economy at the same time as were also setting our path for longterm fiscal stability. Number three, weve got a huge opportunity around energy. We are producing more energy and america can become an energy exporter. How do we do that in a way that also deals with some of the environmental challenges that we have at the same time. So thats going to be a third thing. But the most immediate thing ive got to do, starting on january 1st, if congress doesnt act before the end of the year, is make sure that taxes are not going up on middle class families. And because it is going to be very hard for the economy to sustain its current Growth Trends if suddenly we have a huge bite taken out of the average americans paycheck. Those are four huge things, you didnt mention after newtown, although i know youre thinking about it, new gun regulations. Mayor bloomberg of new york told me couple of weeks ago on this program, that ought to be your number one agenda item. You know how hard this is. Do you have the stomach for the political fight for new gun control laws . You know, david, i think anybody who was up in newtown, who talked to the parents, who talked to the families, understands that something fundamental in america has to change. And all of us have to do some soulsearching, including m