Just 24 Hours Ago This Kaare Klinte Style Safari Or Campaign Chair Was A Hot Mess. I Found It At The St. Vincents Thrift Covered In Cobwebs And Years Of Neglect, But After A Full Cleanup It's Looking Good Again. Status: Available.

Good thing this was cheap because I had to completely disassemble (not that difficult) the frame, remove all the canvas (a little harder), toss all that in the washer, cleanup the frame (time consuming) and reassemble the whole thing (much harder)!  All this in today's 90+ degree heat.

The Girlfriend once showed me a sign in an antique mall that read, "I hunt it, I find it, I buy it, I move

it, I clean it, I fix it, I store it, I move it, I tag it, I pay rent to sell it...and you want a discount?".  This

was before I was in a booth at an antique mall, and even then I thought that was the most honest yet

clever sign I had ever read.  Now that I'm "in the game" I can appreciate the sentiment of that sign 

even more.  Items like this chair are what keeps Mr. M humble.  I had to break this down into it's

component parts to get it ready for the booth and that, my friend, was no mean feat!

The frame cleanup was actually pretty quick and easy.  The maple is hard enough to have taken most

of the years of use in stride and the detritus that had been imbued was easily dispatched with a little

Murphy Oil Soap, some 0000 steel wool and some paper towels.  The canvas was completely

removed but done so without untying the knotted ropes that lace the seat pieces together along the

bottom.  It was just loose enough to disassemble the frame, but after I tossed all the canvas in the

washer (in cold water) the canvas shrunk up just enough to make getting that frame back together

again a challenge.  The upshot is that now the frame is kept nice and tight, as are the seat and armrests. 

With everything now nice and clean this lovely Kaare Klint style campaign chair is ready for a

new home.  Might that home be yours?