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Captain Kitchen dedicates today's exposé to Big Edie and Little Edie Bouvier Beale, stars of the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens by Albert and David Maysles, capturing the mother and daughter pair's eccentric lifestyle in their crumbling East Hampton mansion.  HBO recently remade their story with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange, and while not quite as shocking as the documentary, it heart-wrenchingly portrayed the sadness and glory of their entire lives.  I think Drew just did it for the Emmy, but hats off to her for going for it...  

Today you get just what you've been waiting for: a little tour of Captain Kitchen's home!  Taken with the expert lens of my MacBook's Photo Booth, the grainy, retouched iPhotos resemble the film quality of the original Grey Gardens documentary.

The way my home looks and feels is something I spend a lot of time and energy on.  In the many places I've hung my proverbial hat, each one is a welcome change from and a slight improvement on the last.  Today marks the one month anniversary of living in my current house.  A common comment from visitors is that it already looks like I've lived here ten years - the truth is, I'm a pack rat, and I have more knick-knacks than your grandma.  Every wall, counter, shelf, nook and cranny is the way it looks for a reason, exquisitely detailed and subscribing to an aesthetic that could only be described as purely ME.  

The Living Room

We begin in my favorite corner of the living room.    I love it because in my eyes, it is aesthetic perfection.  It tells a story with each detail it contains.  Jutting out from the corner, the purple chaise lounge is an antique, purchased by my mother in the early 90's at the estate sale of the cranky old lady who lived across the street from my childhood home in Queens (my mother and I giddily went to "dead lady sales" all over the borough when I was a kid).  The flag draped on its back was .. ahem .. acquired from a certain flagpole at a certain private liberal arts college in Vermont in a certain person's (cough-me-cough) freshman year in the middle of the night. ("Certain person" meant to wear it to graduation, but chickened out).  

The framed item at the left of the above photograph (note that everything is backwards because that is the science of taking pictures on a laptop) is a piece of water-damaged cardboard that reads "This expensive wedding gown was professionally dry cleaned".  It comes from the outer box of my mother's "embalmed" wedding dress [at left]. I thought that particular phrase was so ridiculous, and the condition of the cardboard so beautiful, that I put it in an empty frame I had lying around. My mother insisted I take the dress because she didn't want to throw it away and because of the event in my childhood that explains why I have a book entitled "Megan's Two Houses" in my bookshelf.  

The two sources of lighting are an antique candy machine, named Franklin, that is stuffed with white christmas lights (it was once stuffed with m&m's, but that it made it impossible for me to stuff into some of my clothes) [see picture 1 under "These are a few of my favorite things" below for a close-up]; to Franklin's right is a great lamp I found at Green Village on Starr Street in Bushwick - I painted the base with a shiny paint and covered the lampshade with an exquisitely beaded and sequined swatch of Escada fabric that an old roommate brought home. The lamp features a suspended tray-like thing in the middle, which conveniently holds random knick-knacks and the chaise lounger's wine glass.  

To the left of the window is a piece I found at Junk on N. 9th and Berry in Williamsburg [see picture 2].  Junk often displays stuff they just can't get rid of outside at really low prices.  It is a wood-framed mirror with a built-in shelf which has a built-in vase holder.  It was $10.  The painted wood figurine of a bird next to the vase is a whistle.  

And on the right is a real, working piano.  It is a Baldwin Acrosonic from 1943 [picture 3], and desperately needs to be tuned.  I've been playing the piano since I was 5 years old.  My mother is a classical pianist, and gave me my first lesson when I had the chicken pox in kindergarten - it made me do something else with my hands so I would stop scratching (genius!).  I haven't taken lessons for years, pretty much play only Chopin and I won't play in front of anyone.  Really. Moving on...

I have a tryptic of antique lemons that hang above the couch.  (Jonah, if you are reading this, you are never getting them!) ... for the rest of you, Jonah is my (quite impressive and lemons-fiending) little brother.  

While I insist upon fresh flowers in my home, I love dead flowers, and have kept as many as I can stuffed into a giant glass vase sitting atop my favorite bookshelf.  The flowers look best when I bang out Chopin's Funeral March on the ol' Baldwin.  The pink armchair in the top photo is an heirloom from my great-grandmother.  Apparently, everything in her apartment in Miami was pink...

  

The Kitchen/Dining Room

You all know what the kitchen looks like from the Captain Kitchen main photo, but did you know it includes this fabulous dining set-up? 

The table is an old wood library table, painted a deep red on top and dark green at the base.  It has leaves that can fold in on either side to make it long and narrow.  Paired with these chrome and black chairs, it's the perfect combo of antique and modern.  The light hanging above it is something I HATE - it's a rice paper lamp from Ikea that I've had for years - and, excuse my crassness, I think it looks like a giant tampon. Despite my hatred for this hanging lamp, I find it necessary to have something hanging over the dining room table when you don't really have a dining room to define the space.

And here is another great find from Junk.  I use it as a pantry.  And check out the details on top (more dead flowers; I heart my Kitchenaid mixer) and the little gold shelf to its right (left in real life, thanks computer).  I use the glasses as wine glasses - heirlooms from a great-grandmother on my mother's side.

                          

One final thing makes my kitchen complete: hanging pots.  It looks great, and saves you space!

The Bedroom (The Final Frontier)

My bedroom is always the most awful looking room in my home.  I don't know why.  It is consistently messy, and I put stuff in there that I don't want to put out in the living area (thus, the final frontier).  A dresser contains unfolded clothes and random stuff on top:

A mainstay in my bedroom are these prints that my brother made for me the summer before I went to college.  He told me he made them so I had something to decorate my dorm room with.  They travel everywhere with me (they're easy to pack, they stack one atop the other and lay flat) and are always hung above my bed.  They are a rendering of a woman smoking - Jonah said she reminded him of me.  Charming.

These are a few of my favorite things:

Picture 1 - "Franklin"

Picture 2 - Mirror w/ shelf

Picture 3 - Piano

and more...

A bowl of hustled perfume samples (see post on "little luxuries") that I leave out for guests

bowl is silver, from my great-grandmother

Kate Bush the Goldfish (2007-2009)

Many have known and loved my goldfish, Kate Bush, who died recently in her home of natural causes.  She was just over two years old.  Born in Austin, Texas, she traveled the country as Captain Kitchen's faithful companion.  She is memorialized in the lamp below, which sits atop her fishbowl - now empty.  If you would like to pay your respects, Kate Bush resides in Captain Kitchen's freezer, and stands to make history as the first goldfish revived using cryonics. 

Thanks for visiting my home.