Our new super-tufted, claw-footed couch!
Thanks to my good friend Mike H. we got this really neat couch last night! This couch was being tossed on the street in front of his apartment. I am in love with anything tufted, and of course, anything vintage, so this was a real find! According to legend (ha), this couch has been in Mike’s building since the 1930s, making it about 80 years old! They don’t make stuff like this anymore. The details in the sewing alone are really amazing.
When we picked it up, it was covered in tailor-made zippered plastic. The couch looked really yellow, but we found out it was the jaundiced plastic when we took it off. (Yuck.) The couch is a nice patterned gold, with wooden claw footing and framing. Gosh, I feel so happy that we have it! Unfortunately, I bought paint a little while ago to paint our furniture and stencil our wall. Now I fear I’ll have to change the color palette of our living room. Our couches have really dictated the feel of our apartment.
I’m considering gold, teal, coral, and some red accents as a color palette. This is kind of shameless, but it’s similar to the colors used on the back of Brit’s Circus album. Yes, I do have the album. Shameless! i just hope this isn’t too much on the shabby-chic side.
I’m still confused about what I’m going to do with our wall. Oh, and I have no clue what I’ll do with the blue and orange paint I had for our former color palette.
Beautiful, ain't she?
The sad, sad part is that we have to get rid of our old couch, which I acquired a couple of years ago from Craigslist entrepreneurs in a garage not too far away. It is a STELLAR couch and quite photogenic. Still, what was once a tiny tear, is now a huge gaping gash almost right in the middle of the couch! I was so tempted to use duct tape just to make it functional.
This couch is from the 1960s, and it jack-knifes into some kind of bench/bed, but we never ended up using it that way. It has been the star of many of my designs. I absolutely love this couch. The thing is, it desperately needs to be reupholstered, which we just can’t afford. It was also taking up a lot of room in our tiny apartment. So, we will sell it to someone who can take good care of it. I hope someone will want it. It’s awesome!
In the end, I’m sad about about the old green couch, but I’m so excited to have such a cool [even older] couch, with such a rich history. It’s a Jersey City relic! :-)
Here are some cool books on how to buy and use vintage furniture to decorate your home:
- Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s
- Vintage Furniture: Collecting & Living With Modern Design Classics
- The Vintage Home: Clever Finds and Faded Treasures for Today’s Chic Living
