- This here is Thug Mansion.
- [Claudia] This is such a boy house.
- [Eli] What's wrong with that?
- [Claudia] We're gonna tear down the walls.
- Right now?
Just you two?
- [Claudia] What's this movie again?
It's planet of the--
- No, no, no, no, it's like Star Trek.
- [Claudia] Star Trek!
- Get out of here!
Get out of here, you two. (all laugh)
(chill electronic music)
- When you come in, you need to be like,
"Wow, I'm home."
This is big, this isn't even like, utilized.
- [Claudia] This is the sad couch.
You have a gaming chair!
- [Eli] We're efficient!
- [Maya] Wow.
These cords, you tried to hook them up with
gaff tape and then just said, you know what, (beep) it?
- [Eli] We tried and then it unraveled.
- Hello, police?
There's nothing on the walls.
- There is!
There's so much wall.
That's the issue.
- You've seen my house.
- Yes, I've seen your house.
- It's pretty great. (all laugh)
- Okay, it's all right. - [Claudia] It's pretty cute.
- It's pretty cute.
So when I walk into the space, I come in and I'm like,
"Oh my god, I had a hard day.
"I feel so comfortable here, I can decompress."
Do you feel like that when you walk in?
- No.
It's the bare minimum of everything I need.
So I have somewhere to sit,
I have somewhere to be entertained.
- So are you existing
on a bare minimum mindset then?
- You talk about living at the bare minimum,
this is all fuel for your life but you don't eat
microwave dinners all the time.
Like, you like good food and it makes you feel good,
and happy and home-y.
And like, this space needs to feel that way.
- I got Christmas lights, see?
- [Women] No.
- [Eli] This is year 'round.
Look at this, look at this puppy.
- [Claudia] No, no.
Are they all-- - [Eli] Kaboosh!
This is my Google Home.
Hey Google, play some turn up jams.
- Royalty free.
- [Google Home] Sure, music on Spotify, here you go.
(upbeat hip hop music)
- Hey Google stop.
Is this the only candle you have?
- [Eli] I light it, I use the candle.
Need to buy a new one.
- It smells like Axe.
- What?
No it doesn't, it does not smell like Axe.
- [Claudia] Oh my god, it smells like Axe.
Oh my god.
(all laugh)
- You have a candle that smells like Axe!
- [Claudia] That's wild.
- It's moonlit night!
- [Claudia] We're doing a lot of emotional labor
for your future partner so, you're welcome.
(all laugh)
- I've been doing just fine so far.
- You know how valuable it is (microwave beeps)
to live in a space that makes us feel happy.
- Right.
- So, we want you to have that same feeling.
- I appreciate that, I thank you all so much,
and I'm very excited.
A little worried with you, but very excited for what it is
to come of this space.
- Get out of here, man!
- Hey, kick me out of my own home!
- We'll see you tomorrow, you're welcome.
- [Eli] Bye buddy, thank you!
- Okay, bye.
Oh god, (laughs) there's a lot to do.
(smooth music)
With a lot of home transformations,
usually the first step is to declutter
and get back to the basics,
but with Eli's place,
we're about as basic as we can get.
So our goal is to give the place a design aesthetic
and to make it feel so much more cozy and reflective
of Eli's style and interests.
So the first thing we did was to rearrange the furniture
we're working with.
The couch was in sort of an unnatural configuration,
so we put it back in it's original L-shape,
which doesn't put as much focus on the TV
and creates a natural divide between what is the hallway
or pathway and what is the living room space.
Next, we started to hang some shelves.
We have so much blank space that we're working with.
As soon as we can get something up on the wall,
the sooner it's going to look better.
One of the most important things
in any space is the lighting.
This standing lamp was $30 off Craigslist.
It not only adds great soft lighting,
but it provides a classy design element to the space.
I also have this goal of adding lighting to the shelves,
but I didn't want to give him more wires to deal with.
So we got these battery powered lights that were $20 offline
and have a lot of different color changing options.
It's remote controlled, no wires, Eli's gonna love it.
Since the furniture was already so dark,
we wanted a lighter colored rug
to sort of lighten up the room.
Listen to the Dude, "A rug really pulls a room together."
The wires and the shelf were a lot more
of a struggle than I anticipated.
We were able to cut down some of the wires by putting away
two gaming systems that just didn't work anymore,
but we were still dealing with the black cords from the TV,
the speakers, and the Nintendo.
Even though this shelf didn't feel cluttered,
because there wasn't a lot on it,
it still felt disorganized.
So we got these little felt boxes to hold DVDs and games.
We removed all of the tape holding the wires together
because even though that's a temporary fix,
the next time you move or need to change up the wiring,
it's all sticky and all a mess.
So we ended up settling on clear command hooks
to create an organized path for the cords to follow.
A lot of times, you can just hide cords behind a shelf
but since Eli's shelving revealed a lot of the wall,
we just tried to follow the fire place.
Eli's gonna love those lights.
Pillows, I hope he's very receptive to the colors,
I think they look great.
The rug really adds a lot, gotta put stuff on the shelves.
But already, 110% improvement.
(upbeat music)
Okay, it's day two!
We still have a lot to do,
we only have a few hours before Eli gets here.
I am currently pinning curtains to try
to make them the right length.
Loring is helping stuff these pillows
with some stuff stuff we got,
that is gonna make a big difference.
It already looks, those pillows already look so much better.
It's gonna be good.
We still have to put art on the walls,
there's a lot to do.
Another surprisingly affordable
but huge transformation piece are the window dressings.
Nothing says bachelor life more than these vertical slats.
If I could take them out of every apartment ever,
I would do it.
Burn them, but you know Eli is renting so we're not gonna
burn them, we just added some curtains.
I always suggest using two layers of curtains,
one that's sheer so that it can diffuse the light
during the day, and then a thicker blackout curtain option
that actually just helps cool down a space
if you want to keep out the sunlight during the summer.
And finally, we got to the walls.
We ordered some art offline, from some different artists
that would represent Eli's interests and travels,
and also repurposed some of his own art.
Another great way to add to the space is plants.
The plants themselves are pretty cheap, but we did spring
for some cute planters.
But if you don't want to spend money on that,
you can use decorative cups you already have,
paint tin cans to match the colors of your room,
there are so many options.
(exciting music)
- Eli's here, it's the moment we're all waiting for.
We're gonna show him his new space.
Hello! - Hi.
- [Claudia] Are you excited to see your new place?
- Yeah.
- [Claudia] Okay, all right. - Oh my god.
- Close your eyes as you walk through!
And then open them.
All right, good good good.
- Smells the same.
(Claudia laughs)
- And now, check it out!
(triumphant music)
- Ooh wow. (laughs)
Oh wow!
- It's your new living room.
- Yo you got the shoes!
- Yeah.
- With the shoes, there's a rack for the shoes.
- [Claudia] They're not on a pile on the floor
on a dirty piece of carpet!
- [Eli] Oh my god, that's right!
It's not on a, oh my god I love what you did with this.
- No more gaff tape holding up cords.
- [Eli] That is, oh the gaff tape's gone!
The cords are gone, what!
- [Claudia] This is partly a tour, partly a roast.
- I deserve that.
- I can't wait to show you all the improvements.
Should we start with a tour over here?
- Please, please.
- Now, when you have a lady friend over,
she has a place to put her purse.
- Oh, fantastic. - Look at that!
- Wow, really thoughtful for the Tinder game.
I appreciate that.
- [Claudia] Some nice little hooks.
- [Eli] Nice.
- I tried to keep in mind your travels,
and where you're from.
- Stop it!
- So, this is Tokyo. - [Eli] Stop!
- [Claudia] That's Colorado. - [Eli] No!
- [Claudia] You have your Chicago.
- [Eli] Oh my god.
- And I know you're a fan of that like George Lucas,
some trilogy, something like that.
So, I went for space cowboy.
- I will take it.
Yeah, that's very much my brand.
- And there's cacti.
- Oh my god, this is so, I've never had little
greenery things, I've always wanted little,
what do they call those?
- [Claudia] Succulents?
- Succulents!
I've always wanted succulents!
Oh my god, this is amazing.
What, and they got lights there?
What?
- So this is really fun and very affordable off Amazon.
- Oh my god, and this rug!
Oh, there's so many things.
I can't stop reacting to so many things that are in here.
- So check it out, you can put some red.
- [Eli] Yo.
- [Claudia] You can have some lady friends over,
they're up here too.
- I can have a whole party in here!
- [Claudia] A whole party! - How are you so good at this?
I feel like my energy is just so lifted.
- I just want you to be happy, like I thought earlier,
if I had to stay at home sick, I wouldn't want to stay
in this living room.
- [Eli] Yeah, you would die in this living room.
- [Claudia] You'd get sicker!
Now, I want to play hookie and I wanna stay home
and I wanna play my Nintendo.
- [Eli] Yes.
- So we went to a craft store, and got more stuffing
for your pillows.
- Oh, did you really?
- Yeah, and it was really easy to do.
- Oh man!
- So now, they're not like these kinda sad, body sacks.
- I didn't even know you can even get into these bad boys,
learnin' something new everyday about my place.
This is fantastic.
- There you go.
- Oh my god, and this rug is phenomenal.
This makes me want to have a game night.
- Yes, that's your next thing, is to host.
- Like, I wanna invite friends over
and have like a game night, yes.
- I think that's going to be your challenge is
to have some people over.
- I wanna host, you gave it new life.
Oh my god, and I love how swanky it is.
It's like modern, it's swanky.
I feel like this is like, that super host living room
on Air BNB. - Ooh.
- With the nice photos, like that's what I--
- That's such a nice thing to say about it.
- That's what I feel like I have now.
- So, my only hesitation about doing this,
I feel like I'm reinforcing this notion that Queer Eye,
or like, a woman is gonna come in and fix
everything in someone's life. - [Eli] Oh right, yeah.
- [Claudia] So I do just wanna like,
make it clear that you could do this.
- [Eli] That's true.
- It's just, it's just choosing to take the time.
- That's true, a lot of it is what I already have.
Like, you just moved around what is already me,
but you repurposed who I am.
Like, you just moved around what I already have.
- [Claudia] Yeah, I mean this is, all the art
is inspired by your life, or it's your art.
- Right.
- You already had the building blocks,
we want you to be so happy here.
I want you to have people over, I'm gonna get you laid
for like, the next two years.
(Eli laughs)
So, you're welcome!
- Maybe it didn't work out in the past
because I had terrible blinds and--
- 'Cause you've brought them here and they thought
you were in the witness protection program?
- Exactly!
So now, 'cause of this living room, you will definitely
get an invitation to the wedding, so.
- Thank you. - 'Cause I think that's what,
Thank you so much Claudia!
You're so freakin' talented.
- Yay, I'm glad we did this to you.
- Yes!
- I promised him for so long this was gonna happen.
- [Eli] I was begging for so long.
- And it, it took months to actually make it happen, so.
- But it was a nice beautiful, sad canvas, so like.
- It was such a sad, sad canvas. (laughs)
(mellow electronic music)
- Hey, so it's been a couple weeks since I've been
in the space, the new space, I can honestly say,
I feel so at ease.
Actually installed my own frames!
I'm very proud of that.
I have a little jacket there, and guess what,
I got a freakin' chair son!
So, it really opened me up to thinking of like,
all the extra ideas and things that I could add.
Like, I'm gonna do a bar cart, I'm gonna invest in the side,
oh wait, also, because I want to fill up the space,
I added like, this little to-do list thing,
of like, mail, of other doo dads, to-do lists,
what we need for the apartment, just these little things
that like, add so much value.
It really shows the different types of investments
that we could have.
It's more than just like a mindset, it's more than just like
investing in your health or your body.
Like, this is kind of a part of your health.
I can honestly say I feel more calm, I feel more at ease,
I feel less stressful, because of this investment.
So Claudia, thank you for the time, thank you for all that.
And I'm hosting Pero Like, like we're gonna do a game night
at some point, yes, once we get the bar cart.
Everyone's invited.