wideeyedfunk

Tag: furniture

  • Too many socks.

    It was a problem. Gym socks. Knee socks. Hiking socks. Fuzzy winter socks. Socks more normally called stockings. Blue, pink, white, black, nude, brown, and striped socks. Hand knit. Silk. Cotton. Socks.

    Simply. Too. Many. Socks. The bureau drawer was a stew of tangled toes.

    Then, one cold spring day in the not too distant past, a miracle. A solution. We trolled through the estate sale remnants of a family’s life in Tonawanda, New York. The memories of nearly a century were laid on tables, stacked on shelves, piled in heaps for eager crowds to paw through. For a WideEyed person it is an overwhelming experience to witness a lifetime of personal items. Sad. Interesting. Somehow the stuff was too infused by another’s life for me to form a connection.

    The WideEyedSpouse and I fought the crowds and made it from the attics and into the basement. And there it was: abandoned among basement junk, shoved against a brick wall, hung around with faux fur vests for sale. It squatted on its turned legs with the remnants of an old, tired dignity. The chifferobe. Sock-home.

    We wrestled the Starr Furniture Company c. 1920 mahogany veneer and cedar chifferobe through a basement door no wider, no taller than the chifferobe itself. Daylight did it no favors. It was dull and awful. Decades of mildew, basement filth, and the recent scars from faux vest hangers befouled it. It stank of basement. From its open doors wafted stale perfume from another generation. It fit in the mighty Pathfinder as though it had been constructed specifically so that I could get it home.

    We bathed it in a 10% vinegar solution. We rubbed crusted gunk and wax away with Life O’Wood. Old English healed the hanger scars. Minwax Paste Finishing Wax fed the wood and made it glow, just a little.

    Chifferobe. Sock-home. Welcome to the WideEyedHousehold.

    Chifferobe

  • 17th Wedding Anniversary: Furniture

    No traditional gift is defined for the 17th wedding anniversary. Evidently, being married for 17 years is somehow unremarkable. A middle anniversary. One where you aren’t newlywed, nor have you achieved anything truly notable. It is just part way along the long haul. It is Indiana if you are stuck driving from New Jersey to Minnesota. It is Iowa if you are taking the interstates from Buffalo to Phoenix. Not interesting, not there yet (whatever that means for wedding anniversaries), but at least making some progress.

    In modern gifting etiquette, the 17th anniversary gift is furniture. I am disappointed in this because at first I read the chart wrong and thought it was porcelain. I need a new toilet, a new bathroom sink, and a crown to replace a fracturing molar in my maxilla. Porcelain seemed just about perfect. But furniture?

    I guess the giftie list inventors figure that by 17 years the kids and/or dogs have pretty much ruined anything nice you ever had. Maybe it would be a nice anniversary present to sit on a sofa with no crumbs or dog hairs. To have a chair that only you have read in. To get some new mattresses that haven’t any springs poking up. The Spouse and I don’t NEED any new furniture. I mean, it just isn’t a priority right now.

    The 17th giftie seems better than the 16th though. Last year the Spouse and I were supposed to purchase (or be given) silver hollowware. I guess I don’t know or care what that is. I am pretty sure we justified the purchase of a new double door LG gas range. That’s silver. And hollow. Huh. What do you know, we are instinctive anniversary gifters.

    I cruised ahead on the gift list to see what goodies will come on future anniversaries. Jewels. Land. Books. Luxuries of any kind (ran out of ideas I guess). Then, in year 44, groceries. My god. Groceries. That’s something to look forward to. For my 44th wedding anniversary I’m going to be poor enough, hungry enough that groceries seem like a really great gift. Or I’ll be a survivalist hoarder and groceries will be an even more satisfying gift.

    Yesterday the Spouse and I celebrated 17 years of being married by having saffron poached salmon and mussels cooked on our hollowware stove, eaten on our heritage Grandma’s dining room table furniture. If only I had also been using that new porcelain crown.

    The Spouse brought me a packet of peanut butter cups. I ate them. I bought him a lottery ticket, giving him nothing or millions of dollars. Seventeen years. Where ever has the time gone?