[door handle clicking]
- Hi "AD," it's Adwoa Aboah.
Welcome to my home.
Come on in, take your shoes off and come in.
[Adwoa laughs]
[smooth jazz music]
We are now in my living room,
drawing room, lounge room,
whatever you wanna call it.
This is where I sit and binge-watch TV,
but I don't like how a room can center around just the TV,
so we decided to make a very nifty TV cabinet.
Big up, my Uncle Steve, Steve Husband from Yorkshire,
who painted this amazing still life for me.
And then look at this, fat TV,
Netflix, Apple, whatever you wanna watch on here.
This house was like, falling down,
so I had to really kind of like,
pull it apart and put it back together,
and I really wanted to keep a lot of the original stuff,
like, all the banister is original,
the floor that you saw in the entrance.
This cornicing was based off the cornicing
that was already in the house.
My interior designer's called Beata Heuman,
and she's mega, and her lovely partner in crime, Fosca.
I'm prone to fluffy, pink, Hello Kitty, leopard print,
anything that's like, kind of repulsively tacky.
So it was quite good to have someone tone that down.
I grew up in a really colorful house.
I'm not really interested in everything like, matching.
I'm obviously not a minimalist,
so from top to bottom, it is a reflection of who I am.
I am prone to being quite a neurotic house owner.
I definitely have OCD,
so people were quite impressed, when I built this house,
how chilled I've actually become.
And so I think it's more of an enjoyable space for people.
When my friend Ruby first came,
she's danced on this, knocked that down,
and I didn't even get annoyed about it,
so I thought that was quite impressive.
This is my pride and joy.
There's quite a few things I would save in a fire.
I would try my best to get this out of the house,
I don't know if it's possible,
as you can see, it's humongous.
This is by the very mega
and talented Ariana Papademetropoulos.
I commissioned this piece years ago.
I lived at my mom and dad's house,
it was the first money I ever made,
and I put it into buying a piece of work
that I really loved.
I'm a big manifester,
so I kind of was just manifesting the idea that one day,
I'd have a wall to put it up on.
[upbeat jazz music]
This is quite like, an odd room,
because it took a little bit longer to make kind of cozy.
I think I had this idea that, you know,
I was gonna sit and have like,
romantic dinners around this table.
I definitely don't do that.
So this has kind of become like a museum of my life,
and my weird things, and my knickknacks.
My friend Mercedes makes all these weird
and wonderful ceramics.
My sister, Kesewa Aboah, is an amazing artist.
So this was her piece
when she graduated art school in New York.
Oh, fuck, this is sick.
So, "To Adwoa, love Kirsten Dunst."
So, back in the day, I used to go and paint pottery
in Ladbroke Grove with my sister,
and we saw this woman
that looked exactly like Kirsten Dunst.
So we went up to her and we were like,
"Oh my God, has anyone ever told you
"that you look so much like Kirsten Dunst?"
It was Kirsten Dunst.
So we got her to sign our plate,
and I've kept it ever since.
Prized possession,
it should really go in like, a glass cabinet.
I've never been the person
who likes to just kind of hide things,
so photos of my mom, and my cousins,
and friends and family who are no longer here,
this room could have been that room
where you just kind of dump all your stuff in,
but actually, it's definitely my favorite.
Oh look, this is cool, my Barbie.
She's got a prized place in her own throne,
but I was very lucky enough to have been able
to create my own Barbie with Mattel.
She's got her "Gurls Talk" look,
she's got her bougie outfit, so we love that.
Beata and Fosca got this mirror made in like, Italy,
and I love the idea of like,
all the artwork reflecting back into it.
I bought this in Tetbury,
and I completely fell in love with it.
It just feels like a grand disco ball.
These are cool.
[Adwoa laughing]
No joke, that's a real croissant and that's a real baguette.
I found them in Paris
and I thought it was the coolest thing I've ever seen,
to be quite honest.
[upbeat jazzy music]
This is the kitchen, which is amazing.
You know, I spend my life here cooking souffles and curries
and Sunday roasts, and you know,
extravagant chocolate cakes.
I don't, actually,
I don't cook anything in here.
My boyfriend or my sister,
my cousin George is an amazing chef at Brat,
so he comes and cooks me amazing dinners.
I'm a really good cleaner, I can do all the dishes,
but when it comes to cooking, I'm not amazing.
When you have skylights like this,
what I thought is that you had to have quite, like,
kind of ugly shaving,
but Beata and Fosca are genius
and they found these ratan ones,
so, I mean, I rarely open them,
'cause it is like a hot box in here,
but there's something really beautiful
about when the light comes in.
The thing is about this kitchen is I'm as urban as it gets,
I couldn't be less country,
but it does give off this kind of, like,
modern country-esque vibe,
do you know what I mean?
Without being too, like, kitsch.
I would say my style is kind of like a tacky granny, maybe.
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah. [Adwoa giggling] I think.
We've got, you know, a heart boner here.
My friend Jeff made that.
It started with this chopping board,
and then we put it on the island
because who doesn't want an island
that has a heart boner on it?
And you know, teak, teak, teak.
And we covered these in leopard print.
I didn't want you to come into a house,
or for me to live in a house
where everything felt like it had just been made,
so a lot of the furniture is, like, old
and being reupholstered.
This is probably my favorite.
This is by an amazing Ghanaian artist called Gideon Appah,
and it's all based around, like, kind of found photos,
and I just completely fell in love with it.
My magnets are a great obsession of mine.
I change the photos up,
but the magnets I've been collecting since, like,
for years and years and years,
so I'm proud of my magnet collection.
Look, a fridge magnet for your fridge.
Sorry, I think that's cool.
If I have a few minutes,
I'll just sit here in between, like, calls or the podcast
or whatever it is that I'm having to do
and I'll just, like, have a moment to myself.
The sun, because it's south-facing my garden,
I get amazing light that comes in here,
so I just get to, like, lounge.
[upbeat hip hop music]
Come out to my amazing garden, my pride and joy.
My Auntie Sarah, Sarah Husband,
you should definitely use her,
she's an amazing gardener.
I didn't want something that looked so pristine,
and she did it in such a beautiful way.
My mom and dad fought me on having grass.
I kind of agree with them, it is annoying to maintain,
and my sister's dog keeps pissing all over it,
so that's annoying as well.
It's like a rainforest back here,
I've got so many bees, robins.
I do my part for the environment
and I have a compost over there.
I'm about to have some friends over.
It's all laid out very neatly
and we're gonna just sit here and share this one lemon.
[upbeat music]
"Barbarella," "Boogie Nights,"
I love these two paintings
that were made by a great artist
in Ghana called Daniel Jasper,
and back in the day, as we all know,
they weren't, like, making, like, you know,
Digifilm posters, so he was one of
the main painters of them back in Ghana.
What I love about them
is there's just something slightly off about them.
Her face is just slightly weird, and so is her's,
but that's what makes them, like, super cool.
My cousin gave me that for my 30th, so obviously, you know,
who doesn't want a light bulb for their 30th birthday?
I was very happy to get one, so I put that up there.
My mom was a photographic agent for years.
Perry Ogden, an amazing Irish photographer,
was one of her first photographers
that she repped back in the, I think the 80s,
so I stole that from their house.
I'm actually, you know what,
I'm not one of those people who has a load
of black and white pictures of themselves on their wall,
but I have these two, and they're small,
so I'm gonna let myself off,
but an amazing photographer called Jack Davidson did these
and I felt like he photographed me in a way
that I hadn't been photographed before.
Look, sorry. Here we are again, Nadine Farage.
[upbeat hip hop music]
So this is my bedroom.
All I have ever wanted was a princess bed
and a TV in my room,
because I didn't have a TV in my room when I was growing up.
Boohoo me, tiny violin.
And the third thing I've always ever wanted
was matching curtains to my wallpaper.
I don't think it is that princessy as cool,
do you know what I mean?
I didn't go, like, overboard.
I love to say that I sit here elegantly doing my makeup,
but I don't wear makeup, so this is more, again,
like a shrine for all my favorite people.
It looks a lot cleaner, but usually, I have my Dyson fan.
[Adwoa scoffing]
And it is the most comfiest bed.
I think probably one of the bougiest things I bought
for this house was a Hastens mattress,
but it was well worth the great expense.
And apparently, they've got like,
years and years of warranty.
I was told that someone, like,
comes and like, massages it.
I haven't had someone come and massage it,
so I don't know it's time for that,
but if it is, please, Hastens,
send someone to massage my mattress.
The carpet, I mean, the carpet is insane.
Nothing really goes in this room,
but I just didn't want to have something
that looked like every other room you see.
Maybe it feels like it would be quite loud
for, like, a room when you want
to kind of have something that's a bit more peaceful,
but actually, this room is like a sanctuary.
It's very peaceful and very quiet, so I absolutely love it.
[upbeat jazz music]
This is my bathroom, which I absolutely love.
I have the best bathtub.
I made this with Beata and Fosca.
It was actually just supposed to be my initials.
I mean, it's a bit over the top,
but who doesn't like their initials, like, somewhere,
whether it be a wallet or a curtain?
When I first thought about what kind of bathroom I wanted,
it was gonna be quite, like, over the top,
I love pink, but working with Beata,
we decided that we were just gonna do, like,
certain, like, pink accents in the bathroom,
so it still kind of stayed relatively, like, clean
and serene and neutral.
I've got an amazing shower.
For all my Black girls and Black boys,
we all know what this is, so I'm not gonna even explain it.
My mom has an old chest of drawers
that she turned into a sink,
and so I kind of based that on this.
When I kind of thought
of having a house one day and my own home,
there were certain things
that were just kind of non-negotiables,
and so I'm very happy to have my, like,
Murano green chandelier in my bathroom.
An amazing light comes through this window,
and to be quite honest, I know this sounds a bit cheesy,
but I sit here sometimes and I'm like, "Wow,"
like, "I'm so, so lucky that I have a home like this
"and I worked hard and I was able to do this for myself,"
and so sometimes, I just sit here and think like,
"Whoa, I can't believe this is all real."
This room is particularly, like, special, I think.
As I get out of bed,
it's always the first room that I come to.
I definitely like sitting here a lot.
You can walk through this bathroom into my dressing room.
It is over the top, I'm not gonna lie.
I have an old clothing problem, shoe problem,
that I'm managing.
But you know what? I've been sober for nine years.
We all gotta have a vice and that's my vice.
[upbeat jazz music]
Thank you for coming to my home, "AD,"
you've been amazing guests, but now, you've got to go.
[lips smacking] Mad love.
[upbeat jazz music]