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" &amp;quot;Try not to use quirky too many times in this story, okay?&amp;quot; intones Liz Meriwether as she adjusts a framed poster of a unicorn in front of an unfurling rainbow in her dining room on a recent Saturday afternoon. The request would be easy enough to comply with if it came from anyone other than Meriwether, the bespectacled creative genius behind FOX&amp;#039;s New Girl, whose own small-screen alter ego, Jess, is played by the reigning queen of quirk, Zooey Deschanel. Perhaps not surprisingly, the adjective also applies rather nicely to the home Meriwether purchased last year, an otherwise sleek three-bedroom midcentury ranch house in West Hollywood, punctuated with touches such as a backyard statue of an alligator; a kitchen chalkboard upon which the ominous REDRUM is scrawled; and an unapologetically fake Mona Lisa, complete with gaudy gold frame, that hangs in a powder room. &amp;quot;I always try not to take anything too seriously,&amp;quot; says Meriwether. &amp;quot;My house included.&amp;quot; (For the record, Meriwether&amp;#039;s quibble with the Q-word? It denotes &amp;quot;something a little too contrived.&amp;quot;)  Those among the 6.7 million fans who tune in to New Girl weekly will appreciate what an upgrade the new digs are for the writer. The show, now in its third season, chronicles the hijinks that ensue after the endearingly offbeat Jess walks in on her boyfriend with another woman and is forced to move in with three male roommates. It&amp;#039;s loosely based on Meriwether&amp;#039;s four years living in various Craigslist sublets around L.A. (Upon graduating from Yale, the Michigan-raised Meriwether moved to New York, then relocated to the West Coast.) &amp;quot;I had completely exhausted my patience with Craigslist,&amp;quot; she says. Ironically enough, Meriwether, 32, was able to get out of that situation by writing a show that glorifies it.  She ultimately settled on the first house she&amp;#039;d viewed\u2014after it went on the market, then off the market, then on again. &amp;quot;It was like a boyfriend I couldn&amp;#039;t get over,&amp;quot; she says. (This being L.A., the house&amp;#039;s previous resident was Selma Blair.) Still, the move presented a few problems for Meriwether. For starters, &amp;quot;I could literally fit all of my belongings into my Honda when I moved in. All I had were clothes and some weird mugs.&amp;quot; And writing a hit TV show\u2014Meriwether has a reputation among her coworkers for routinely spending the night on the couch in her office on the FOX lot\u2014doesn&amp;#039;t exactly leave much free time to, say, spend hours scouring 1stdibs. So she did something very grown-up\u2014and not quirky at all: tapped L.A. interior designer Sienna Oosterhouse, who worked with Tom Ford on his Santa Fe home and was recommended by friend and fellow TV writer Deb Schoeneman (Girls). Oosterhouse turned her client on to accents such as a black leather Oviedo chaise lounge and a custom sectional in teal-colored velvet. (&amp;quot;At first I thought it would look like a weird &amp;#039;70s love den&amp;quot; says Meriwether.) Meriwether also held on to some pieces left by Blair, including an antler light fixture in the study and a master bed outfitted with a retractable flat-screen TV embedded in the footboard. (&amp;quot;I was worried it was kind of douchey at first,&amp;quot; she says.) Still, the writer managed to work in some quir\u2014er...eccentric touches. She bought the aforementioned alligator after visiting New Orleans and seeing the real deal up close, and she covered walls throughout with finds from Art.com (in addition to the unicorn, she found pictures of outer space and a jackalope). Of course, like any good writer, Meriwether walks a fine line with her comedy. &amp;quot;I had my mom over for Thanksgiving, and the whole time she was like, &amp;#039;Liz, please take down that unicorn.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; Click here to see inside Meriwether&amp;#039;s L.A. home. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/fashion/personal-style/a12601/new-girl-creator-liz-meriwether-interview/>