Part 2: How bad is too bad?

Remember when I asked in a post a few days ago if a house could skip "bad" and go straight to "too bad"? After making an appointment to see said house, here is what we found upon entering.

We were a little surprised that the sellers hadn't made even the most minimal effort to clean out the house. It would quite literally take a crew with a dump truck to get rid of all the detritus that was left behind when the previous owner vacated. That's probably one of the reasons it's been sitting on the market for 170 days.

The verdict: It is a lot cooler than we had expected...and in worse shape than we thought, inside and out. In addition to the mounds of trash and abandoned personal belongings, we found obvious water damage, possible mold, and general dilapidation of wood and stone structures outside.

Still, we haven't ruled it out, if for no other reason than that both bathrooms have vintage Pomona tile designed by George Nelson sometime in the late 50s or early 60s for the Distinguished Designer series (which included tiles by Paul McCobb, Millard Sheets, Dorothy Liebes, Saul Bass, Paul Laszlo, and Dong Kingman). At some point, the top of the vanity in one bathroom was replaced with marble, but I found a lot of 76 of the tiles on Ebay, and failing finding the same tile later, we could always have it tiled with a complementary untextured tile. (Yes, I'm already starting to obsess.)

ebay.com

Work your magic on me

To mid-century enthusiasts who read our blogs and browse our shops but don't actually own any mid-century furniture yet, I'm sure our collections are enviable...even glamorous. But those of us who are out there buying at estate sales and thrift stores know what goes into having great looking vintage pieces. You either reupholster and/or refinish or you "clean up," as in "I know it's a little rough, but it will look great after I clean it up."

I had to laugh about that yesterday as I spent my entire Saturday afternoon painstakingly poking snagged threads back into the upholstery of the daybed I just got from my SIL. I love the fabric, and I haven't seen anything new that's similar to it, so until I find something I like as well, the daybed is a "clean up."

But it's 50 or 60 years old, so it's bound to have a few pulls, right? No, it had a lot of pulls, which is one of the downsides to the loose weaves so popular back then. The entire seat cushion was covered with snags on both sides and all four edges. It looked deceptively good when photographed from across the room, but there was no way I was using it in that condition.

Why do we spend hours laboring over pieces of furniture that some people might give up on? Maybe it's because the finished product is something unique that you can't find at a local furniture store...something with character and with a history of being passed down from one generation to another...something that was loved enough by someone not to have been hauled out to the curb when a newer style came along. A piece like that deserves our time and care so it can become part of the memories of another generation or two.

The playroom may still be a work in progress, but the daybed is ready to use. Was all that tedious work worth the effort? You bet it was!