MR. EASTER'S DISAPPEARING FURNITURE

(This is a long post so you might want to top up your wine glass before continuing. Ed.)

A few weeks ago while exploring a local flea market recommended by sister K, I came across a pile of burlap grain sacks from the early 1940s. They had some interesting markings on them and apparently had been made in Belgium; the exact provenance was written on a little card next to the display but I have since forgotten what it was. For $24 a bag, however, I thought the material had some repurposing potential so I bought one with a vague idea of what I would do with it. As often happens,  this vague idea eventually took on a life of its own (sometimes I just sit back and watch it happen) and I knew what I would do with the sack. An ancient ottoman sitting in our store room for several years would be the perfect vehicle for repurposing my unusual find.

 

I was about to transform this pig's ear into a lovely silk burlap purse.

The origins of the ottoman are somewhat interesting, if slightly vague.  I remember it residing in my grandmother's house and that it matched a rather uncomfortable club chair with the same fabric. Somewhere in the intervening 50 years or so the chair went missing but amazingly the ottoman had survived, probably because I thought it had "potential" when I rescued it from our parent's attic. I have a lot of things like that lurking in my house and store room, just waiting for the moment when I realize what it is I am supposed to do with it; sort of a "Design Epiphany". After some digging I found it stashed on a back shelf and something about it jogged my memory. It had been years since I had actually seen it and suddenly I had a flashback to Mr. Easter...

Mr. Easter, or simply Mistereaster, lived in the same tiny central-Texas town where my late mother grew up. He was the official Town Upholsterer and had a booming business, needless to say, since it was him or no one. Just like summoning the Village Blacksmith if your horse threw a shoe or the Town Crier if the marauders where coming to steal your children, you called Mistereaster if you had a furniture problem. My grandmother was always calling him to swing by and collect a chair or sofa from one of her furnished rent houses and was by far one of his best customers. Giving him something to reupholster was one thing; having it returned or even finding it, was another.

Mistereaster was pretty good at upholstery but really awful at keeping track of his customer's property and, I suspect, possessed hoarding tendencies that went undiagnosed. It never failed that we would drive up to his shop looking for something, only to be told that "it isn't quite ready yet". It wasn't quite ready because no one could quite find it and hadn't seen it in weeks, months or sometimes years. Like the Katzenjammer's closet, every time he opened the huge doors to the storage room something would fall out, and not in a good way. A wall of furniture would threaten anyone standing within 10 feet of the opening and the kids were always told to "stay in the car!". Sometimes the piece was found, but sometimes not for weeks and a few times was never located at all. Things just simply got sucked up into the swirling vortex of Mistereaster's store room and then spewed out into a parallel universe. Or as my mother used to say, "It has entered The System", never to be seen again.

For some reason this didn't seem to stop anyone from continuing to call on Mistereaster for his upholstery services and the mismanagement and frustration continued on, literally, for decades. Eventually Mistereaster passed away and his son, Mistereasterjunior, inherited the business. Finally, missing furniture would be reunited with its owner (if they were even still alive)! Unfortunately, Mistereasterjunior had inherited his father's penchant for losing things and the vicious cycle simply continued. Occasionally, sometimes years later, my grandmother would receive a call saying her slip covers or somesuch were ready but by then they had been long-forgotten as was the chair itself. The last time I remember driving out to look for something MIA, a huge sofa came flying out of the barn and we ran for our lives, never to return.

This brings me back to the ottoman. While rather small and rickety it seemed to have potential and so I decided to channel Mistereaster and give it a go. That's when I discovered one of his secret upholstery tricks that probably went to the grave with him...

Somewhere in here is buried the news-of-the-day, circa 1934.

As I cut away the rotten fabric from the top of the ottoman I discovered shredded, yet neatly compressed, yellowed newspaper from the 1930s. No doubt this method was much cheaper than using batting exclusively during the Great Depression and my guess is Mistereaster had been doing this for years. I also discovered the origins of the frame itself, which was actually an old crate used to ship medical supplies from a company called G.K. Harvey Company, also circa 1930. It turned out I was in possession of a piece of history cobbled together from materials readily and cheaply available during tough economic times and repurposed by Mistereaster. Now, many years later I was doing the exact same thing: spending just a few dollars to restore my grandmother's ottoman using a seventy year-old grain sack found at a flea market. 

 

I loved this grain sack at first sight.
You know how some things just speak to you?

 

For all of the misplaced items and customers bereft of their family heirlooms, Mistereaster's efforts at recycling were certainly well-meaning. Looking at his handiwork and realizing what an amazing job he did at creating something out of virtually nothing, I found a new respect for his abilities. What's more, I think Mistereaster and I are a bit like the long-lost chair and its ottoman: one gone but not forgotten, the other striving to find new purpose amidst faded cloth and yellowed newspaper.

On second thought, maybe the chair is still sitting in his store room...

I hope Mistereaster would be proud of the finished piece.
At least it hasn't disappeared into "The System". At least not yet.

 

Chairs,

Gigi