Marriage. Crap. Pile o’ shit. Ex-furniture. Late mid-century-modern TV chair.
This thing, or, more properly, these things:
This is what’s left of two American-made, walnut, totally “moderne” TV chairs, likely dating to around 1970. There are famous and expensive examples of this type of furniture. But I suspect this was “Sears Better” from the period.
The back story is that I moved into a little 1950s house in Vienna VA in 1993. The sole criterion was that I could walk to the Metro, as my job was in downtown DC.
Across the street was a nice couple, him retired military, her his wife. Colonel Pike was a force to be reckoned with. After a snowstorm, I’ve never seen a sidewalk shoveled with such precision. I can still recall what must have been this 80-year-old guy, walking around on the roof of his house, fixing this and that. Adjusting the weather vane in the shape of a golfer.
As a guy, I occasionally did roof maintenance myself. But, at that age, tromping around on his roof? Simultaneously macho, admirable, and batshit crazy. It gave me the willies watching him. I don’t doubt that at 80 he was more than my roof-top equal at the time. Yet I cannot even guess how his wife felt about this.
As time wore on, I got in the habit of shoveling our neighbor’s sidewalk as I shoveled my own. Including Colonel Pike’s. No doubt, not to his standards, but you do what you can.
Eventually, cancer got him. I believe it was leukemia. I clearly recall him saying that. So no doubt he faced up to it.
My wife caught up with Mrs. Pike, at some point, just kind of sobbing while standing on the sidewalk. My wife did what she could. I cannot imagine the depth of that love. Lost without her life-long partner.
But let’s put that aside, guy-style.
The point here is the mounds of possessions that got taken to the street, as Mrs. Pike planned to move to Texas, to live near her daughter.
That was Döstädning. Swedish death cleaning. Though I did not know the term at the time.
My son, with an eye for treasure, picked these two chairs off the pile. We used them for years, but 40-year-old fabric and foam just didn’t stand up to a bunch of kids crawling all over them. In the end, the foam broke down, the fabric ripped, my son made one valiant attempt to de-construct what was left.
And what you see above is the result.
Now I’m retired, with way too much time on my hands. I’m going to try to put these back together. Not exactly as they were before. But in the same spirit, as “TV loungers”, or whatever.
We’ll see how it goes.
They say that retirees need hobbies to keep them busy. As a former small-business owner, all I can say is, screw that. I’m just not motivated to turn my time and treasure into low-valued objects.
But reconstructing an interesting artifact from the past? Yeah, I guess I can get on board with that. So here goes. Furniture Restoration 101.
