Latest finds and updates

Here we are in October! I am still working for the census. We are supposed to finish field operations by midnight Monday but there are also things going on behind the scenes so it’s not over until it’s over. I could be here a week or two more, or another month. It’s hard to say!

That said, I managed to pick up a really cool 1959 dining room which needs a good cleaning and a few minor issues to tend to. The maker, Hoover Chair Company of Lexington, NC, went out of business in 1968. I have a dining table which has great legs, one leaf and the table pads are in great shape, matching one piece narrow china hutch and a compact credenza. There are also 6 dining chairs, 4 armless plus 2 with arms. They need a little tending to and new seat foam and fabric would put them over the top. Will price by the piece but if you are interested in building a set, bulk pricing available. As always, if you want to DIY the repairs I can give you my best price. Here are a few pics.

As found and ready for some new seats!

Beautiful blond china cabinet with glass doors and chrome hardware. Not mInt but far from trAshed. Priced to move locally!

Side board in it’s home since 1958! Comes with good juju as it’s former owner died at the age of 106! I do sage my storage area here and there to protect you from transient energY if you are sensitive to that kind of stuff! Hey, we are in october now so spookiest time if the year!

View of table. It has awesome legs and ferrule on the bottom. One leaf and original Custom table pads includeD. Will get pics soon. Want to make a few steel plate reinforcements for the blocks the legs screw in as over time has weakened them. One already has neen repaired. If it interests you let me know and i will get on it as fast as i can. I may keep the chairs and table together as a set. I think it may make more sense.

Farmhouse simplicity! Maple end table pair. Finish is in great shape. Only needs a few touch ups.

It’s a side table...it’s a humidor…it has a mosaic tile top!

Copper lining!

3 piece bookcase set! Solid wood with rustic style. Refinish or leave as is. Nice peg legs. Pier cabinets can be arranged separately! I have a heywood set just like it and it’s fun to play with!

I am working on getting the lane rhythm chairs redone! I have 2 more seats to do then onto cleaning up the wood. I have an interested party, if she passes they will hit the open market. Using a nice cream tweeD on thr seats which looks great with the walnut wood. The Creden from this lane dining room is being delivered to manhattan tomorrow!

My couch went to the upholsterer a few weeks back!

It’s going back together! Here is a sneak peEk of the back showing my new fabric! The supports are all done and he bought me 4” foam for the seat. Cannot wait to get it into mu living room! I just got the walnut monocoat fInish and will be working on the trim.

That’s a lot of update! I am really busy and of course, the end of the census got pushed back to the 31st of October now so my lay-off may be as well. Just going to ride out the wave and try to keep up. Reach out if you need me!

XO Malissa

A few new items. Fresh upholstered goods landing later in the week. Holiday countdown.

Greetings! I had a busy week which included seeing my Heywood Dining Set off to it’s new home in the Boston area. Happy my friend could join me on the trip and we had a fun gal day trekking through New England and back. Always thankful to my friends who accompany me on big trips.  

This week I was able to snag a few pretties that are not officially listed yet.  Please directly contact me if you want to snag them.  I will offer a direct price if we cut out the middle men like Etsy and PayPal.  JUST IN! A gorgeous pair of Lane mini cedar chests that hold albums! They are so cute! Feature an upholstered bench seat top, castors and cedar lined interior.  I am in the process of redoing the upholstery as the original vinyl had some issues.  That said, one is already spoken for.  The available unit will be $300 restored.  I can shave a little off if you do cash and local meet or pick up.  I can probably ship Fed ex and for sure Greyhound if price is better.  

there is only one set of tags and going with the sold unit but you will get keys, the old locks (lane recall on the original locks has been in effect since the 70s.  This prior owner worked for the newspaper and I can tell he took it seriously as his own label at the lock notes he swapped them in 1974. 

Lots of album storage!

That 80s recover has been removed and the original black vinyl has cracks and issues around the edges.  I will be sewing a replacement in cream tweed.  There are castors on the bottom and it wheels around nicely.

This fabric will look great with the warm wood!

Also New is a gorgeous Lane end table! The wood is so pretty with a warm teak or medium walnut glow.  I have not listed it yet as I am trying to identify what line it goes with. It is stunning!!!!

Look at that joinery! It’s as sexy as the Danish chairs! Seriously this would be awesome between them!

Next I dropped off my latest restorations with the upholsterer yesterday.  He was slow so it worked out great that I can help him out! They should be done by the end of the week!  

She started tearing apart the France and Son Sigvard Bernadotte Chairs while I was still there.  They are now fully rebuilt and I chose the oatmeal tweed for the job. Available in my Etsy shop, coming soon to my chairish shop.

BEFORE

After. 💕👌 

 BEFORE.

After fabric!  

I have a delivery next Monday to the Hudson Valley.  If you are up that way and looking for something reach out! 👌

XO MALISSA

Early morning pics. 

All new cushions, delicate pleats and zipper access. 🙌🏻 

Hans Wegner and who's the Murphy in Murphy Bed?

So over the years, I tend to not keep my high end finds, preferring to improve them and send them on their way. I spent last weekend picking up many new items and some will be sold but there are 2 that will be staying with me! I am super excited to be able to take in a Ry Mobler- Hans Wegner designed teak Murphy Bed with shelving system that includes a secretary. It was offered to many other dealers and because it is such a specialized piece, no one wanted to take on the risk and of course, the effort that goes along with bringing the piece up to snuff to sell. It totally is rare and also, many of these dealers did not trust it was a legit Wegner design. We all know he did work for Ry Mobler, but unless you find a catalog or ad, you can never assume that a designer who worked for a company designed everything they put out. So with that said, I picked up the piece where it was being stored and got it home. In the mean time, I spent some time considering using it in my son’s room rather then selling. Sure, it could be worth thousands in my retail markets, but my son also lives in our smallest room and having a built in desk area would be nice plus when he leaves for college in 7 years, the option of folding a bed up into the wall is very appealing. Murphy beds are quite popular in the NYC market and my former job at the millwork shop produced more than one custom bed for clients. The hardware itself to accommodate the bed was probably a grand alone at cost. I welcomed the opportunity to host this piece in my home and also know that in 10-20 years, it may be worth even more.

One evaluation, my husband and I made a mental list of what needs to be done to bring the piece back. The finish needs some work and I am thinking a light sand, danish oil and then sealed with a top coat. I am going to do some research. I want the finish to be durable and have a sheet to it that danish oil alone does not give. The leather loop at the top of the bed deteriorated and broke off. I immediately thought of the saddle shop near us that works with leather to have one recreated, but my husband suggested looking for a leather belt in that size at a thrift shop. Why did I not think of that? So I plan on grabbing the piece next time I hit the thrift store to see what I can find. It just needs to make a grab loop and will be easy to recreate by punching a hole through the ends and re securing it to the screw. Also under consideration is a system of mounting the cabinet to the wall. We all know 1963 (as dated on the piece) was not a super child friendly period and I also read that since the inception of the Murphy Bed.

“The bed is named for William Lawrence Murphy (1876 – May 23, 1957), who applied for his first patents around 1900. According to legend, he was wooing an opera singer, but living in a one-room apartment in San Francisco, and the moral code of the time frowned upon a woman entering a man’s bedroom. Murphy’s invention converted his bedroom into a parlor, enabling him to entertain.[1] Earlier foldup beds had existed, and were even available through the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog,[2] but Murphy introduced pivot and counterbalanced designs for which he received a series of patents, including one for a “Disappearing Bed” on June 18, 1912[3] and another for a “Design for a Bed” on June 27, 1916.[4]

Murphy beds are used for space-saving purposes, much like trundle beds, and are popular where floor space is limited, such as small homes, apartments, hotels, mobile homes and college dormitories. In recent years, Murphy bed units have included options such as lighting, storage cabinets, and office components. They have seen a resurgence in popularity in the early 2010s due to the weak economy, with children moving back in with their parents and families choosing to renovate homes rather than purchasing larger ones.[5]

In 1989, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the term “Murphy Bed” had entered common usage so thoroughly that it was no longer eligible for trademark protection.[6]”

— Wikipedia

The closed bed features a beautiful rattan panel, leather grab loop which we are recreating, straps that will secure the mattress when lifting and a nice latch that holds it all in place. We will need to replace one of the straps and add a buckle.

The bed will fit right into the cabinet.  The original mattress was pitched and I would not have used it anyway, but it would have been nice to have to recreate one.  We hope to jam Trent’s ikea mattress in as it is a few inches too wide.  Length, however, is perfect! 

So my next step was to prove the provenance of the piece. This is not always easy. I use lots of tools on the web and spend lots of time searching. Sometimes I get lucky and turn up the proof, sometimes, I do not. This took me about 24 hours to turn up, but I managed to find the original 1964 ad for this piece which did attribute the design to Hans Wagner. So think about this….you can probably go to any decent art museum in a city near you, and find something of Hans Wagner on display because he certainly was one of the mid 20th century greats. And now I own one of his pieces! It’s crazy and I am so thrilled.

Apparently George Tanier imported many high end pieces from Denmark.  If you find his stamp on your piece that is a good sign it is a better piece.

Ry Mobler stamp which is also on the piece.

I will say the construction is teak board under teak veneer. There is no MDF in this piece. Most danish casework does use veneer over MDF and that practice is still being used today as my job built $300,000 kitchens made the same way. MDF if a very strong substrate. Solid teak board today would cost a fortune and it would be crazy expensive to recreate this piece in today’s exotic wood market.

See the grain in the wood? You can tell it is solid board and not mdf (medium density fiberboard) where you would notice shredded pieces of board were glued together and foamed into a new board, usually with formaldehyde.  

I will keep you all posted on my progress on the piece as I work on it.  My son cannot wait to move it into his room!  

My next weekend rescue has been in the works for a year.  I finally picked up my future couch! This amazing Craft Associates piece spent the last 25 years in a barn.  We pulled it out on Sunday and literally unearthed it. I am not ready to take it for upholstery work but I have lots to do before I get that far. It is moldy and will require some extra rehab projects that I can start working on a while.  It is safely in my garage and hopefully drying out.  Will be documenting this process as well.  Stay tuned!  

My first project will be removing the walnut facade and cabinet. I can work on refinishing the wood, eradicating the mold and replacing some bad MDF in the cabinet bottom.   

We will need to remove the steel support bars, clean up the rust and repaint.  I will also look for replacement casters and either sourcing walnut legs or having them turned.  

The end result is going to be worth the work! 

NOW FOR MY NEW INVENTORY ITEMS! 

Set of 4 Farstrup Mobler dining chairs.  I will custom recover the seats in fabric you choose from my stash, black vinyl or I can source something for you to order. They are listed in the Etsy shop, coming to chairish.   

Amazing hard to find Thonet arm chair designed by Pierre Paulin in cobalt! It is not perfect but in usable condition. Retains inventory tag from York Graphics.  

I picked this awesome 20s/30s era deck lounger up the other week and made a new seat out of indoor/outdoor fabric from F Schumacher.  It is now available in my Etsy shop. 

This great set needs some rehab before I list them but I love these mid century transitional  styles and the cane is on point. 

IF YOU ARE LOOKING TO ADD SOME FINE FURNISHINGS TO YOUR HOME PRIOR TO THE HOLIDAYS OR PURCHASE A GIFT......please make your selection soon as it may take up to 8 weeks to arrive if I have to ship with a shipper or Greyhound.  Don’t be scared, I am here to help you the entire way! I would love to help you select the perfect piece!

THANKS FOR FOLLOWING! I am continuing my sale at the Mall space this week.  Please grab some fun kitschy decor items at my rock bottom price. 20% off one item, 30% off multiples!  

SHOP WED-SUN 10-6, @Fleetwood Antique Mall, 14129 Kutztown Rd Fleetwood PA 19522

XO MALISSA