(upbeat music)
Hey everybody.
Welcome to my house in Connecticut.
Come on in.
This is my kitchen slash dining room slash living room.
It's just one gigantic room, which is what I wanted.
This is the living room area.
I'm a really big believer that you can make furniture
from different decades and different eras all work together.
For example, this couch is from the 1960s
and these dining room chairs are actually from the 1980s.
They're the ultra suede.
I just love the fact that they're kind of campy
and kind of weird.
I've gotta be honest with you.
I design for myself.
I don't care what anybody thinks
about anything that I've put in my house.
If it makes me happy, it goes in my house.
If you don't like it, you're not invited.
I saw this rug and I said, oh my God, I love that rug.
One of these days, I'm gonna have a house.
I'm gonna put that rug in it.
So I bought the house,
and then I went and I bought this rug,
and I decided to use the colors in the rug
to create the color palette for the house.
So I pulled out some of the green for the sofa,
pink for the dining room chairs,
and then the walls are blue.
So that's how you can use a piece that you love,
whether it's a piece of artwork or a rug or anything else
and just pull colors out from that
and use it to design your space.
As the years go by, I keep adding more skylights.
I keep making windows bigger and bigger and bigger.
I love the fact that everywhere you look
there's a different window to look out of
and each one looks onto a different little scene.
Mother nature becomes a design element in the room.
These leaves are constantly changing color.
In the spring, they're this beautiful light green.
In the middle of summer,
they're this beautiful, deep, deep green.
And so the room is constantly different
with every single month that passes by.
Sometimes you look out at a little porthole window
and you'll see like a bunny rabbit or you'll see a deer.
So, there's something for me to look at in every space
that really sets the tone for the entire house.
I wanted a lot of counter space,
because I lived in New York City for 15 years
in an apartment that had this much counter space.
I've had every natural surface that there is in a kitchen
and a lot of them have significant downfalls,
whether they pit or they stain
or they're not heat resistant or they chip.
And so, I just decided to go with an engineered surface.
Nothing stains it.
Nothing scratches it.
And I can put a warm pot down on it
and have to worry about ruining it.
So this was a very thought out decision
that I'm really happy I made.
You might not know this about me, but I love to wash dishes.
That's why I oriented the sink
to face out the window, right?
So I wash a little dish here, look out the window,
see what's going on in the world,
get myself into a meditative state
while I'm cleaning things.
And then the sink has a drain board.
You wash a dish, you put it right here.
Just let it dry.
How about that?
I know people like a farmhouse sink.
I don't live in a farmhouse, but I love a drain board.
You might notice that there is no refrigerator.
(gasps) What?
How can you not have a refrigerator?
Well, I didn't want a gigantic refrigerator
taking up a big chunk of real estate in the kitchen.
So we got drawer refrigerators, which are super fun.
In this one I keep, well,
I keep my cocktail mixers evidently.
But also, meat and produce go in there.
In here I've got all my condiments, my dairy, my eggs.
Then I've got freezers down here.
Here's a great freezer tip
that only took me 53 years to figure out.
Whenever you have grease
that's left over on the stove,
pour grease into this tin can,
put it in the freezer, it solidifies.
Then when it's full,
you throw the whole thing in the garbage.
And then I'm also kind of obsessed
with making my own chicken stock.
One of the great things
about having homemade chicken stock in the house
is that you can make chicken and dumplings
anytime you feel like it.
Like I'm gonna show you how to do in the studio.
So I'll see you there.
Thanks for stopping by.
(upbeat music fading out)
(twinkling)