Was is worth staying up all night and further messing up my sleep schedule? Yup. It was Not the score of the year such as the Amazing Franciscan Starburst Haul from last year but neither did I submit myself to possible frost bite. No, this was a more civilized stake out for a more subtle prey.
Unlike last years crazy mid winter all night frozen feet stake out for the Franciscan Starburst
(where I first met my estate sale buddy Illuminate), this was not an all nighter...but it was still
a long "morning" of waiting around for the rest of the buyers to show up and ostensibly justify
the early hour arrival. There just weren't many estate sales this weekend with much in the
way of Vintage Modern to go to. If I had to drop all my eggs into one measly basket...well then
by God, I was determined to be there first! And first I was.
This danish style lounge chair was the main focus of my attack. I could see a price tag on
the pics that the sale company provided but couldn't make out the price. It looked like a figure
that I was down with and was willing to take a chance. There were also some other choice
items at the sale that I was ready to pull the trigger on if they were within my price comfort
zone and I figured that if this was there and priced nicely and the other item that I could see
in the pics were there...well then there was a good chance that I'd find other smalls and what
not that I'd be interested in as well.
I wasn't too keen on the choice of upholstery material, but it is in excellent shape. Still, I got to
wondering if maybe...just maybe the original upholstery might be under those covers. ShaZAM!!!
It was! I took the cover off the back rest first and was happy to find it in great shape, clean and
unstained. Sweet! Then, off came the seat cushion cover and at first I thought that there was
JUST a small stain that I might be able to remove from one side of the cushion...then I noticed
that the material on the front edge of the cushion was deteriorated and falling apart.
Now I has a sad. This can't be easily fixed. It's not like I can just turn the cushion around
and face that to the back. Oh well, can't win 'em all. Anybody got an ingenious solution to
that quandary? The chair needs it's strapping replaced (got it covered) and wants for a bit
of finish love, but is in otherwise great serviceable condition. I think it is an exact match to
the chair that Rhan and Co. recently acquired and refinished! Weird, right?
Also snatched up from the estate sale this morning is this amazing Vintage Modern George
Nelson style (sorta) slat bench. It is so crazy long. While it did fit inside Frank, it had to be
loaded on top of the passenger head rest so that I could actually close the hatch. And DAG
was it it a mess. Covered in cobwebs and years of filth. I gave it a cursory cleaning for these
photos but it is still a hot mess. It's going to get a more thorough scrubbing, don't you worry.
I've looked around the net a little this evening (morning again, really) to see if I could find
anything like it for identification purposes but have thus far come up empty handed. Most
of these have the angled end edges on the slats or are expandable. This one has neither
feature and has brass rods that seem to hold the ends together. Anybody seen one like this
before? There aren't any markings on it that I could find...but then again, I'm pretty sleep
deprived. Can you blame me though?!
After putting up a valiant fight, we have finally conceded. Some things just have to be reupholstered. ;) My SIL is paying for me to take upholstery classes in January. In the meantime, we've found a guy who has to be the slowest upholsterer on the planet, but he's cheap.
ReplyDeleteYep, the upholstery needs to be redone. If you haven't already, look into continuing ed classes at your community college on upholstery. I am signing up for one here next month. Good luck!!
ReplyDeleteYou could sacrifice the bottom fabric on the cushion and use it to replace the damaged part on the front, Mother Modtomic
ReplyDeleteI picked up a pair of chairs from a friend a couple of months ago for $100 each that were in fruitwood finish with nice original upholstry. Refinshed the frames (easily dismantled) and redid in a darker finsih and flipped for $320 each. I would leave the covers and work the frames and let someone else worry about the recovering. Bench may be a nice vintage knockoff looking at the legs and would just clean up and turn as is. My two cents....
ReplyDeleteAs numbers 5 and 6 at this estate sale we sure enjoying meeting you. Newbies that we are we learned a lot from watching you in action. You were such a gentleman to help us score a deal. Love your blog, and hope to see you again sometime soon. C + S, the cluelesscampers
ReplyDeleteDana - That sounds like a valuable investment in your time and energy. If I did this full time I'd so be right there with ya. If your guy does good work I'd keep him handy, slow or not. It's hard to trust anybody to do good work of any kind any more. Maybe just find a couple other slow but good guys so that you don't pile too much work on him! Fast / Good / Cheap - Pick Two.
ReplyDeleteRachael - I'm pretty sure that if I just made myself do it I could make new cases using the old ones as patterns. I'm pretty savy with the figuring out of these things. But I'm also a perfectionist with no patience. Bad combination.
Mom (Hey looky! That's my mommy up there!) - That's a great idea for preserving the original look of the cushions! I was actually kicking around replacing the outside panels of both cushions with different but complimentary material. But if I was going to go that far I might as well have just made new cases all together. It's a moot point though...read on.
A Mod Line - The chair found a new home earlier this evening (last evening I guess since it's like 2am). Turns out all I had time to do was pull it out of the car, take some pictures of it, clean it up, slather it with Feed-N-Wax and drive it down the road a bit to pass it on to the next happy owner! I was promised by the new owner that I'd get to see it after it gets refinished and re-upholstered.
Anony - Hi guys! Good to hear from you. I loved your home. I wish I hadn't been so "out of it". I probably sounded like an idiot half the time we talked. Mr. Mod does like his sleep and doesn't do so well when denied it. Maybe some day I might get invited back to publish a feature on you digs if you'd like? Can you believe that the chair is already gone? I never even listed it!
It's flattering that you liked our humble abode here in Kirkwood. We bought the house from a flipper, so we had no input on the kitchen remodel. But at least we have refrained from ripping out the bathroom. I love the raised ripples in the bathtub--my granny had one like it. We haven't quite decided where to put the buffet yet, it's such a versatile piece. Once we get some more MCM pieces we will invite you back for an after! C + S, the cluelesscampers
ReplyDeleteLove me some danish lounge chairs. I can't get enough of em! It looks like the lounge my hubby painted recently. Cool score.
ReplyDelete