- Hi, I'm Tan France, welcome to my home, come on in.
[upbeat music]
The house was built in 1906.
I actually end up purchasing it over FaceTime.
I was away, I called my husband, so he came to the home,
showed me around on FaceTime and I said,
"We're buying that house."
He said, "there's now way, it's hideous,"
however I would like to believe that being incredibly gay,
I have vision and that vision is usually
to make things pretty and here we have it.
Okay this is a very common misconception,
that because I have very easy access to an interior designer
Bobby, that I would have asked Bobby for advice,
however I wanted to show Bobby that I could do it
and that I'd learned and so no,
I didn't ask Bobby Berk, he's seen it
and he seems very impressed.
The first thing I purchased for my home was my sofa.
There's a lot of gray that runs throughout the house,
a lot of gray and brass and so having this piece
that felt almost mid-century modern with the brass hints
dictated the rest of the decor of the ground floor.
Okay this is the focal point of this room,
I wanted to make a feature of this wall,
I didn't just wanna have arches and not fill them well.
It all centered around this, this we had in our old home
and I like it very much and so that was gonna be
the vibe of these shelves and so almost everything
that you'll see on here is from a vintage store
or thrift store and then there's these awards here
which I hide away behind a clock.
And nobody ever gets to see those.
I am very proud of what the show has achieved
but I'm also very embarrassed by the accolades.
So these light fixtures were original to the house
and we had them rewired, I love these,
I think they're a beautiful sconce.
We were looking at more modern ones,
it just didn't fit in with the vibe of the house.
The fireplace was incredibly hideous,
it was a terracotta color, it was all tiled,
I did not like it at all but it was original to the house
and I didn't wanna rip it out, I wanted to keep
as much integrity to the original house as possible
and so we just painted it so it blends in
with the rest of the home.
When you see me on the show "Queer Eye",
season one and season two when I'm often looking off
and I feel quite distracted, it's because I was thinking,
oo what mirror is gonna go above my fireplace.
It was so considered that I wanted to make sure
we found a mirror that mimicked the shape of the arch
on the wall of my home and we finally found it.
And I think it works beautifully.
[upbeat music]
So from the living room we walk into the kitchen,
I love that again there's no door,
so it feel still relatively open
but we have those comfortable spaces, smaller spaces.
We've made the cabinets gray to make it feel
a lot more modern, we added brass touches
to make it somewhat classic, this is a custom concrete
countertop, I am very comfortable with my masculinity
and my femininity, I'm more feminine than masculine
but when I designed the house, I didn't want it
to feel like a woman's home, like a girl's home.
I think it would have been equally lovely but more feminine
I think to add like a marble countertop,
it would have been very nice but I like
that this feels a little bit more industrial and robust.
I loved this Viking oven, I bake constantly.
I cook almost everyday, I bake almost everyday
and so the kitchen's very very important to me
and I like that I have enough space to be able to
make a meal for 12 people.
The only thing I wanna do when I'm home
is either sit on my sofa and watch TV
or be in here cooking something wonderful
or baking something wonderful for my husband
and my friends, it makes me so happy,
however, we did run out of storage space already,
that is a common problem we have in our home.
This just got added a few months ago,
so this was a completely open space,
this is now all storage under here
so it's practical but I didn't think I was gonna use it
for a functional space but I truly do,
it makes me really happy.
I have a piece of artwork here,
the artist, I actually don't know
what her name is other than her Instagram handle
and her business is called Strange Dirt.
And she's a twin and you're gonna see a lot
of her artwork around the house and her twin's artwork.
This feels almost art deco and there's touches of the house
that feels very much 50s so, sorry between 20s and 50s
and so this fits in, in my opinion beautifully.
You'll also find a lot of my husband's artwork
around the house, my husband is a wonderful artist
and a very successful artist.
Every now and then he'll let me keep the pieces
that I'm obsessed with and so we'll have it in the house,
however what we'll find is that it'll be up for a month
and then he gets sick of it and he wants
to move on to something else,
he's a typical artist, it drives me insane.
So my husband, he starts work really really early
in the morning, he leaves at like five o'clock.
So I come here first thing in the morning
to make coffee, it's the only way I can start my day,
and he leaves notes for me, every day,
11 and a half years on and this was his note this morning.
He has terrible writing, you might not be able
to read what that says.
He's just, truly is the nicest person on the planet,
love him so much.
[upbeat music]
I love my dining room, so off the kitchen,
I wanted a separate dining room,
that has been my dream since I was a little boy,
quite honestly we grew up quite poor,
my parents were immigrants, usually working two, three jobs,
we didn't have a dining room, we didn't have a large space,
I had this fantasy that one day I wanted to live
in America, 'cause I used to watch a lot of American TV,
I wanna live in America, I wanna have a dining table
where I could eat with my friends and my family.
When we purchased the home, this was an office,
it did not have this, I wanted to make sure
that I had an archway that mirrored all the other archways
in the home, we had a domed ceiling
to add a point of interest.
I wanted to create a table that was large enough
for 10 people to sit around because there is 10
of us who are very close and come to my home
every time I'm home so this is a perfect sized
table for them, these lights, it took us ages to find,
I believe they came from India, they create
a really low light, we wanted that kind of ambiance
we didn't want a bright dining room at all.
It's the most warm space in the evenings.
I spend the happiest days of my life
in this room without a doubt.
I am obsessed with the Queen.
I just find her fascinating.
So I found this weirdly in a vintage store,
I treat this the way religious people treat a bible,
like I make sure that it's always taken care of,
if it falls on the floor, you'll hear me gasp.
One of my favorite things in the home
that just makes me giggle is this.
So if you look closely, you will see
it's a picture of me and my idiots.
This was produced for us by Netflix,
they sent it in a lovely frame, we didn't frame it
and I believe all of us have it in our homes.
I've seen it in Antoni's, I've seen it in Jonathan's
and I believe that Bobby and Karamo have it in theirs
if they haven't, what are you doing dumb-dumbs,
put it up, it's so nice.
[upbeat music]
Okay now I'll show you upstairs before we get
all the way up, the chandelier.
This chandelier took quite some time also
to decide what we wanted to do, we didn't want to
do something small, we wanted it to be really dramatic,
this was custom-made in India for us,
they're all individual glass pieces
which were incredibly heavy.
It weighs a ton, we are worried that one night
in the middle of the night there's gonna be
an almighty bang and it's gonna be this
but for two years it hasn't failed so
let's hope it's gonna last another 30.
[upbeat music]
We don't have a lot of guests staying
because I'm here so infrequently.
So every six months or so we'll have somebody come stay.
Again all of our rooms have this domed effect,
this arches effect so we couldn't split the room.
I chose chocolate velvet curtains to make it look rich
and lux and this is the only space you will see photos
of my husband and I and the only reason that we put it up
is because we're being ourselves which is morons.
We don't take serious portraits, that's just not
our vibe at all and so yeah, that little piece there
is the only evidence you have that I am still married
and he hasn't divorced me even though I'm a nightmare.
So this rocking chair I love very much.
Hopefully I will be a father one day
and I wanted something that would be cute and comfortable
and fit in with the house that I could rock my baby
to sleep in and so this is it, I think it's a lovely chair.
[upbeat music]
I don't know, I didn't even think that I was gonna show you
this but I am gonna show you this.
It is my candle closet, so my candle closet,
I'm obsessed with, I wish you had smell-o-vision
because it smells, just so so good.
We always have candles burning in the house.
This is actually the least full it's been
in a very very long time.
And then if I'm in a bad mood, which is very rare,
my husband knows where I am,
I'm usually just here, sniffling in the closet.
I'm really particular about bathroom space.
The way to achieve a successful marriage is this,
I know this is a brute-y thing to say,
but if you can afford it, don't go number two
in the same place as your partner because then
you keep the mystique alive.
This is a shared bathroom for us to shower
but this is his bathroom, you know what I mean.
We don't really bath, like we're not bath people
and I always thought, well it seems sexy to have two showers
in a shower, we've been married for 11 and a half years,
who cares that there's two shower heads,
nothing romantic is happening in here,
it's just nice to look at.
- I like to keep as much continuity across the home.
So yes, we have a lot of brass.
I love the subway tile, I know that it was trendy
a couple of years ago and people are probably over it,
I see it as a classic, I love it so much.
And then the tile on the floor, I wanted there to be
some more colors so it's really easy to tie in other colors
and hopefully be livable for many many decades.
Without it going out of style.
Nothing in the house you will see,
other than the actual structure is original.
We changed everything in the home.
The house was a house, it was not a home,
it was a gnarly, gnarly house and now it's a home.
[upbeat music]
okay so off the master bathroom is our bedroom.
I wanted a large enough bed but not too large.
So let me tell you this, this is the furthest
I will allow him and he will allow me to be from each other
so we chose to get a normal sized bed.
People, when they see it on my Instagram,
they make fun saying, all that house
and you chose to get a small bed?
I wanna be close to my husband, I like him a lot,
I love that it's gray, ties in with downstairs
which is immediately below this.
Downstairs you'll notice we painted the sconces white,
these were original black, we just had them refinished
and I love the accent on the walls.
This space here used to be a closet, like a linen closet,
I wanted to be able to create a little nook
and I think this works beautifully,
I love this, I spend a lot of time on this, when I'm not
downstairs on my sofa, I will usually be in here.
[upbeat music]
This used to be a shower room in here
and then the majority of it was a closet.
Instead of having a closet, I turned this into
a water closet, I love the bathroom,
I think it's gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous,
I always fantasized about having a clawfoot bathtub
but here's the thing, I don't take baths,
neither does my husband, I will force myself to take one
maybe every six months, just so I feel like
I'm not a complete idiot for creating this bathroom
and so this is literally an Instagram bathroom.
I don't use this for real life,
I actually hate having a bath, I think
it's a complete waste of time, I have this bench here
for the once or twice a year when I'm having a bath
where my husband can sit in here
and we can have a lovely chit chat
and then we have this butler stand right here
which has a bunch of robes that are clearly
decorational only, they just serve no purpose
because nobody's using this damn bathroom.
There's only two of us that live in this home,
I think this space is bloody beautiful.
It's the place where I come to
take Instagram content, that's it.
So because I removed the original closet,
and I clearly have a lot of clothes
because I do that for a living
I will show you what my closet
looks like so come along.
[upbeat music]
Okay so the final space that's actually finished
is the closet, so the closet is the only space
of the house that I didn't design myself completely.
I worked with this design company to create a closet
that felt very much me, I didn't want it to be
too feminine, I didn't want it to be too masculine,
I wanted it to feel like a really good balance.
And so this is what we achieved.
This floor runs the who length of the house.
This section here is my husband's.
He doesn't have a lot of clothes.
So this is his section.
The rest of it is mine.
On "Queer Eye" I talk through how a closet should be
organized to make life a lot easier for you
and I always talk about color coordinating you closet.
Come, come, come, come, let me show you.
So I've loosely done it, so I categorize my clothes into
all button up shirts, all suits, all lightweight jackets,
all heavy jackets, you'll see that I mostly do it,
it just, every now and then, I travel a lot,
I ain't got time to figure out my closet right now.
We have shelves at the top of this
that are completely empty, I haven't found
the perfect thing that will live there yet.
That will bring me complete joy
and so they are currently empty, don't judge me.
This right here is the piece that I wore for the Emmys.
This took a disgusting amount of hours for people
to hand embroider this whole thing,
so I have not re-worn it yet because it seems
like a lot of look, like I can't really go down
to the grocery store in this, however maybe I will one day,
maybe I'll feel really extra about my life.
You know "Clueless", there was this moment
where Alicia Silverstone, Cher, is getting robbed,
and the robber says, okay get on the floor
and she's like, oh my gosh no, this is am Alaia.
And he's like, a what-a?
It's an Alaia, a really important designer.
And so I found this vintage Alaia.
So this is a woman's piece, it is tiny,
I have not worn it yet, I got it about six months ago
and I'm waiting for the right kind of occasion
to wear on a red carpet 'cause it's definitely extra.
Usually when I'm trying to put it on,
my husband has to come over
and push my ribs in so I can close it.
Okay so it's very like 80s.
Oh god I've put on some timber, wow.
We're gonna break what we call the fourth wall,
which is you guys and I'm gonna bring in
a lovely young man who's producing this
to help bring my ribs in.
This is Ross, he's lovely hair.
Oh the other way, okay.
Oh yeah, yeah there he is.
[gasping]
thank you Ross, I am breathing in so hard
but do you see that shape it creates, my god that's good.
I'm very very happy about it.
[gasping]
I love the dark wood, I love the wallpaper,
we have a lot of wallpaper in the house.
Wallpaper is actually very traditionally English,
we don't have a lot of paint in our homes
because it's actually a lot colder in England
than it is here and so to warm up the house,
you usually have wallpaper and it just feels a lot cozier.
What I love about the closet is that there is so much space
in here, like behind all these hanging clothes,
there are more shelves, but the thing I was most
excited about was a room for shoes.
I have a problem, this is only about half of my footwear,
I've got some more there, some boots there,
you may see that I'm obsessed with white footwear,
I have been since I was 15, I talk about it
on "Queer Eye" constantly, I always give somebody
a white pair of sneakers, it just goes with everything.
Over the last year or two I've become a little bit
more obsessed with heels and so I have a lot of heels
that are a least a couple of inches high
on my show "Queer Eye", everybody's over six feet tall
and then there's Karamo who's like six five,
can I make this very clear
and I wanna set the record straight once and for all,
I am five nine, I am an average sized human, human man.
That's all.
And then I love the mirrored wall because it makes the space
look so much larger and there isn't room
in a closet for a mirror for me to see myself
and so this offers me a space to check myself out
when I'm fully dressed.
Because of the fact that I truly have run out
of space in this closet, we are now turning our basement
into a walk in closet, a fully functioning closet.
And so I wanna show you that.
It's not done yet, brace yourselves, it's terrifying.
[upbeat music]
First thing's first, you're gonna back up slightly
this is an archway that was the original archway
of the basement, they added this doorway which I don't want
because it doesn't tie in with the rest of the house
and we're gonna get rid of that and make this
an archway the same as the rest of the house.
This is the basement right now,
this is generally what the house looked like
before we moved in, this in my opinion
is going to be the most beautiful closet
you have ever seen in your entire life,
I designed it myself.
This is gonna be mostly papered, it's gonna be very quirky,
desk drawer situation in the center,
this is going to be, I don't want to give too much away
but it's gonna be a full shoe wall.
And then all of this is gonna have hanging space on the side
that's gonna have hanging space in there.
We're gonna knock out the center wall
and there's going to be a bed that is encased
in an incredible hanging closet.
So I can luxuriate and just enjoy
the splendors of my closet.
My husband I assume is not going to be
down here with me, he refuses to sleep downstairs,
I don't care, I guess this is where we divorce
and I separate and move downstairs into my closet
and I choose clothes over my husband.
[upbeat music]
Thank you so much for taking a tour around my house
but I've got to kick you out,
I've got to get ready for my next flight
so see you all, bye.
[upbeat music]