Since 2012, Architectural Digest has taken the lots inside movie star properties by means of its “Open Door” sequence, a kind of zhuzhed-up iteration of “MTV Cribs.” And in doing so, the sequence inadvertently amassed a woodpile of what Los Angeles comedy author and director Karolyn McKenzie calls “movie star wooden brags,” distinct origin tales house owners inform in regards to the reclaimed wooden of their properties.
Two TikToks, now with about 2.9 million views mixed, have been McKenzie’s try, underneath her “Loopy Salad Comedy” moniker, to seize all of the instances well-known figures spoke extremely of wooden throughout home excursions.
In McKenzie’s first video, which she posted final week, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard gush about their teak bathtub made by Scottish barrel makers, whereas twinkling piano music performs within the background.
“The neck of this guitar was comprised of wooden that was recovered throughout the renovation of the Chelsea lodge, which is someplace I lived at one time,” mentioned actor Michael Imperioli (“The Sopranos,” “The White Lotus”) as he confirmed off the instrument’s deep pink hue. “The physique was from an outdated bar referred to as Chumley’s.”
“The second that I knew that this was the place that we’d increase our youngsters is that this 300-year-old oak tree,” Jeremiah Brent mentioned whereas his husband, Nate Berkus, made treelike gestures along with his palms.
McKenzie mentioned she beloved “the hilarious specifics of the wooden brags: the piers of Venice, Italy! Scottish barrel makers! Unimaginable Amish communities!”
As an avid watcher of HGTV, she noticed that many individuals, no matter their fame or wealth, take pleasure of their good wooden. But it surely was private, too. Her grandma used to brag a lot about all of the maple round her house that she was buried in a maple coffin. “‘It’s good wooden!’ she’d at all times say after which knock on it,” McKenzie mentioned.
When Hannah Stella, a 32-year-old author in New York, watched McKenzie’s TikToks, she realized she did the identical factor. (Celebrities, they are surely similar to us.)
Stella’s present obsession in her house is a set of three Yakusugi nesting trays, comprised of cedar bushes on the southern Japanese island of Yakushima, and honored with a characteristic in her newest TikTok apartment tour. She purchased the trays, together with another picket kitchenware for buddies, whereas visiting the island in 2017.
“Once you see it in particular person, and maybe on the video as properly, simply the grain may be very fairly and distinctive, and it’s shiny,” Stella says of the Yakusugi on her espresso desk.
“And I believe it’s good to have an object in our house, whether or not they’re like my little trays or a few of the celebrities’ loopy eating tables or the teak bathtub, … that really feel just a little bit particular.”
“I believe all people may be very into romanticizing their lives proper now,” Stella added. “Whether or not it has the backstory or not, … I believe it’s good to carry issues and contact issues which were in our house which might be stunning.”
As McKenzie’s TikToks went viral, commenters weighed in with their very own brags.
“To not brag, however I’ve a bread field from the 80’s that was as soon as owned by my alcoholic grandpa,” one person wrote.
“To not brag however i preserve a stick underneath my mattress that i discovered on the bottom when i used to be 12,” one other wrote.
On the finish of McKenzie’s first TikTok, she spliced in a clip of Michael Kors, who exhibits off two items in his “Open Door” house tour.
He holds a stick in every hand as he waxes poetic about nature and craftsmanship being facet by facet and the way the sticks “completely complement these Nakashima nesting tables” in his Greenwich Village penthouse. However, finally, there’s solely a lot to say. “Right here’s the stick, and right here’s the porcelain replication of the stick.”
