Actress Julianna Margulies experienced a nightmare return home from her recent family winter vacation - flights were delayed, her luggage went missing and when she finally got back to New York, she discovered her apartment had been flooded during the holidays.

The Good Wife star's Manhattan home looked very different to the one she shows off in the pages of the new Architectural Digest magazine, which ironically hit the streets the day the star returned from a trip to Colorado.

She tells U.S. talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, "We went skiing for Christmas this year. We went and stayed at the Marriott in Denver... We were fine and then they lost our luggage, and that's fine. It happens... The whole time I kept saying to my son, 'We have our health'.

"Then we walked into our brand new apartment with this (magazine) in the mail - and everything was flooded. The whole place had completely flooded from the guy upstairs. His radiator exploded."

But Margulies is staying upbeat about the drama, adding, "At least we have pictures (of what it used to look like)."