Fed up with crowded big-city living, advertising executive Jim Blandings (Grant) decides to seek a roomy house in the country. Construction of the new home, however, is beset by myriad problems, from doors and windows that don't fit to plumbing that won't function to a wife more concerned with coordinating colors than containing costs. Blandings - an expert at crafting catchy, seductive advertisements - buys into his own exaggerated sales pitch, but just as he becomes absorbed in the romantic image of a wonderful, extravagant home he becomes equally embittered over the reality of the actual product.