Ernie Kovacs and Edith Adams are a city couple and don't have any immediate yen to become a part of New York's "outer suburbia" colony. Instead, they chose a sophisticated apartment overlooking Mahattan's East River Drive for their first real homemaking. During the settling-down process, though, the place didn't look too sophisticated! They were so anxious to move in, they didn't wait till they'd bought very much of anything, and for weeks they were surrounded by a down-to-earth welter of packing cases, boxes and excelsior. The furniture arrived piece by piece: "For a long time, there wasn't a chair in the place!" They designed special cabinets and had them painstakingly built. They went on regular pilgrimages to auctions, antique shops and art galleries, searching sometimes for a specific item, more often just looking until someting struck their fancy. Says Edie: "We'd read about a special chair being auctioned somewhere and scoot off to that auction house, maybe buy the chair and then get to one or two more sales before six o'clock that same day!" Ernie's favorite decorating chore was buying paintings -- he haunted the galleries, bought only what really appealed to him, consulted experts on having framed gilded or tinted or constructed, and he's proud of the result: a group of oils, engravings and prints a collector would be happy to own. When it's finished, the apartment will combine warm colors, traditional furnishings and an air of comfort -- a perfect setting for a couple who share a lighthearted love and a sentimental feeling that won't quite let them toss out the small white plaster ornament that perched atop their wedding cake. Evenings at the Kovacs' domicile, whether company nights or at-home-alone nights, are always full of talk and music and usually turn into idea "meetings" for Ernie and Edie's late-night TV nonsense sessions (seen only in New York). Ernie's as unpredictable at home as on TV -- and in Edie, he's found himself a gal who loves him for it!
