Married 'Designing Miami' Stars Eilyn and Ray Jimenez Find 'Good Balance' Between Work Rivalry and Love Life
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The married stars of Netflix's Designing Miami (now streaming) are always trying to figure out how to prioritize their relationship and their respective companies.
Eilyn and Ray Jimenez each have their own interior design firms and the new reality series documents the Miami power couple as they compete for business.
"I think we have a good balance," Eilyn tells PEOPLE about how the pair tackle it all without getting at each other's throats. "There's times where we know who is wrong and we'll just roll with it... but we're learning."
"Every day we're learning something more about each other," adds Ray. "We have to know when she's being receptive and when I'm not being receptive, and vice-versa. If I come to her with a decision that we need to make, and she's not into it, shame on me."
"Just bring diamonds and you'll get all the answers you want," Eilyn jokes.
The new eight-episode reality series takes a bit of DNA from two other hit Netflix shows — Dream Home Makeover's aspirational design and Selling Sunset's high drama — to depict the tough balance the two moguls face making their private lives and work lives work in front of the cameras.
And while the couple are still trying to figure it out, they agree that doing the show brought them even closer.
"We have our own companies and our own activities that we nurture and grow and depend on, but this is something that we've done together," Eilyn admits about working on the series with her husband. "Making sure that we are staying on the same page and that we're helping each other and understanding each other again, it's been super exciting to do it with my best friend and do it with somebody that fully understands what I'm going through."
"Since day one, we were well aware that we both wanted to win," adds Ray about their competitive natures. "We fell in love, we were obsessed with each other, but then we're like, 'We don't want to work together; we can collaborate, [but we] don't want to work together,' and here we are six years later."
Netflix
The "young Latino power couple," as Eilyn dubs them, may butt heads, but they always agree on one thing: the importance of going the extra mile for their wealthy clients.
Eilyn notes that the most over-the-top demand she's met is creating a closet bunker that connected a daughter's room to her mom's closet. Ray's craziest request: helping a client dispose of an inflatable sex doll to hide it from their religious family.
"After you work with somebody for six to 12 months, you become friends," Ray explains about wanting to develop personal connections with the people that hire him. "You're building somebody's dream, so you really want to understand their personality and reflect that into the project."
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"You're touching pockets and emotions, somebody's home, so it becomes very, very personal," adds Eilyn about getting close enough to their clients that they can retain them for the future and get referred to their friends. "Nurturing those relationships, I think, is what sets us apart from everybody else, because we do care."
And while most clients will take their guidance, the pair reveal some take a bit more persuasion. "If something really doesn't work, I'll say, 'If that's the direction you want to go, by all means, but as your designer, I'm strongly advising against that,'" says Eilyn. "Usually those last words scare them into taking your advice."
All episodes of Designing Miami are now available on Netflix.
