In fact, Tanya's career began almost by accident. First, she designed and built her own home, working hand-in-hand with architects and contractors. She enjoyed the process so much, she decided to continue. With the help of her cousin, a licensed interior designer, she founded Tattered Hydrangea. The goal was to find tattered properties that could be improved with a wave of the magic wand and lots of hard work.

The Tattered Hydrangeas purchased homes that lacked style and turned them into jewels—often doing the work themselves. They installed floors and cabinets, hung drywall and painted. LOTS of painting. And she might still be running Tattered Hydrangea, renovating houses and reselling them to happy buyers, except for one videotape that changed everything.

Tanya and her cousin taped one of their Tattered Hydrangea properties and submitted it to the TLC show Property Ladder. Producers selected the tape from among thousands of applicants, and suddenly a documentary crew was following the Tattered Hydrangeas through a complete renovation. The episode featuring Tanya aired in 2005, and it caught the eye of ABC and the producers of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. They were impressed by her personality, poise and unique approach to design, as well as her willingness to get arrested for the sake of art. (Seriously, check out the Property Ladder episode!)

McQueen is now a designer on EM:HE, ripping down and rebuilding a new home every Sunday night. It's really just Tattered Hydrangea on the most massive scale imaginable! It also allows her to meet amazing families and change their lives, something she feels honored to do. As she says, "it's a privilege to combine passion for design with compassion for others."