With a new solo TV show, a book, bath bedding and furniture collections in the making and a new season of Queer Eye, Thom Filicia is in a whirlwind.

Before he brought haute to the hetero hordes, Thom Filicia was appointing posh pads for the East Coast's upper crust. Hoisted to household name fame by Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, New York-based Filicia is in the process of parlaying his success into a virtual design empire, with no less than a new solo TV show, a book, bedding, bath and furniture collections, a line of homes, and a partnership with W Hotels. Somehow in the mix, he's still making time for personal clients like Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, whose Brookville, Long Island home he recently redid.

You've described your style as modern classicism. How does that manifest in your work?
I think you can take very traditional elements and just through editing and being very clear with your intention, you can make them very modern. That's really what I try to do. I also like the architecture to feel important, so it has the opportunity to be seen. I want to be able to look at objects and furnishings in a way that they read a little more like sculpture, because you can actually see them.

Before Queer Eye took off you already had a very lucrative design business. Has the QE experience changed that?
Queer Eye is amazing, it is one of my favorite things that I've done in my life. It's allowed me to speak to a much bigger audience than I speak to with just my high end [design] work, and I really enjoy that. And it's given me opportunities. I'm now working on bedding and bath and home collections, and furniture design. A lot of things are happening. I'm able to expand my business into areas that I might not have extended as quickly or maybe ever. But you know what? I have a lot less time. I'm filming two TV shows. We have 15 new episodes of Queer Eye coming out in the new year, and then I have my new show.

What's that?
It will be out on E! and Style, this summer I think. Basically it's me, working with women as opposed to men. It's going to be a lot of fun. Time-wise it's a little tricky, because I also have my business and my clients. Plus I've started working with W Hotels. And I'm also working on a line of modern homes for Timberpeg. Oh, and then I'm working on a book.

What's your book?
It's going to be a how-to book that takes a lot of what I know from the high-end world of design and also what I do on the show, which is help solve the major stumbling blocks that I think most people starting out with their own interior projects find hard to get beyond. Also it's just a way for people who are not in a position to hire an interior designer to tap into me as a resource. And my bedding and bath and furniture collections will support all of those lessons and ideas.

On Queer Eye you do a lot with a seemingly inexhaustible budget.
Wow, it's wonderful to hear that it looks like it's inexhaustible funds, because I'll tell you, we don't have a lot of money to work with. One of the things I feel very proud of when I look at the show is that I'm actually able to make these products - and some of them are not terribly expensive, which I think is great -but we're able to make them special and beautiful and important.

Are you encouraged to use certain manufacturers' products on the show?
Since my budget is so small, I trade out exposure of shopping at your store or talking about your product. I get a list of vendors who want to work with me, and then I try to match the right vendor with the right person. Because if you're 22 years old and you just graduated from college, I can take you to Ikea or Bed, Bath & Beyond or maybe West Elm. But if you're an attorney and you have two or three kids and you live in the New York suburbs, I need to take you somewhere like Baker, or like Williams-Sonoma Home. I need to take you to a place you would maybe go on your own, and that fits your demographic and your lifestyle. I try to take people to places that they can go back to.

Whom do you look up to in the world of design?
I think with a lot of the things that I'm doing now, certainly Martha Stewart is a great person that I look up to in terms of just being so smart and always really understanding how the world of product and design work hand in hand. Ralph Lauren I think is another great example of that. In terms of interior design one of my favorites is David Hicks. He's an English designer that I just think had a really great handle on classical architecture and classic design, but he was also a real modern master, and his work had a lot of zip to it.

What are you most proud of in your career so far?
There are a couple things. Through television I think the thing that I'm most proud of is the fact that our show was able to really bring a lot of different people and personalities and lifestyles into one environment and make it all harmonious, and really bring people together. I get numerous letters from families thanking us because they now have a better relationship with some of their children, and kids writing us and saying that they came out and moved out of the house, and now they're very close with their parents again. So that's really important. But I think from a design standpoint, I did a pavilion at the [2005] World's Fair in Aichi, Japan that I was really proud of. It was so beautiful, and it really told a beautiful story about American design, and it was received so well.

So where will we able to find your bedding, bath and furniture collections?
We're not really sure yet. A whole bunch of people have approached us and we're meeting with them right now. Each company has a different set of manufacturers and system of distribution, so we're really kind of navigating through and trying to figure out what makes the most sense for us, for here and now and also for the long term. With everything that I'm getting involved with right now, I'm looking at it as how it'll work and represent us today, but also how we'll be able to grow in the future. Because this is something that I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life-and hopefully that'll be for quite some time.