brothers from different mothers

The twins started as a pair of singles.

Thats kinda the way of it in this stuff.  You come across a single piece, buy it on spec, and fire it into the storage pit (here there be dragons...) while you figure out what it matches.  Sometimes it does match a piece we have and we build up a suite, or at least a pair of matched pieces.

Other times, we have to just accept that its and orphan.

Anyway, by good luck we managed to end up with the Twins.  One I know came from Avondale, but I don't remember where the other is from.  Jos did the upholstery for them ages back and we had a go at refinishing the frame of one with a satin polyurethane finish.  It looked ok!

Then - true to form - they sat around a while.  This gave us time to procrastinate.  Which is good, since that takes a lot of time.

Our recent flush of excitement brought them out again.  After all, they are nearly finished.  We decided to go with the full strip and furniture oil finish for the frames, so all the hard work of 'urethaning the one frame went west...

It was worth it though.  What do you reckon?

coffee anyone?

Do you like the coffee table in the pictures in the previous post? We do! We bought it off Trade Me and it looked like this... Actually, this image makes it look good - it had lots of paint spot and heat rings all over it, and was looking a bit tired.

A few hours later, it looks great! OK its no Otto Larsen - its a veneered chipboard top, but the sub-frame is solid mahogany-esque and the wicker insert is complete and tidy. Now all the heat rings and paint spots are gone, and the blonde streak shines through the newly oiled surface, its a great addition to the family.

Expect to see a lot of it in various poses with sale items this year!

gee, we've been lazy...

Its been a while. OK, ages.

We've used weather, family commitments, phases of the moon, global warming, anything to avoid the effort of finishing any of the (mumble too many mumble mumble) projects we have on the go.

But we met up with Dave (sculda) a few weeks back and got re-energised. He put us onto a supplier of paint-stripper that works oh-so-well! So we immediately started into it again. The outcome is the completion of Heidi, the hardback sofa.

Heidi came to us from west Auckland. No black t-shirt or ugg boots, but also not the best looking westie chick. Outrageous. We were fortunate.

Jos took ages to do the upholstery. It was a learning curve for sure. The fabric chosen came from modus100 on Trade Me. She sources some really cool stuff from around the place, and we bought a few metres of this stuff on spec.

So all the upholstery got done including new squabs, and then we stalled. It was only the arrival of the new paint stripper (sorry - not saying what that is!) that got us under way again.

OMG. Polystrippa, Coopers, and all the other products are just, well, bollocks compared to this stuff. Its quick, clean and leaves a great surface for us to refinish the timber.

Heidi loved it! We pulled her completely to pieces - the base frame down to components. Every piece was individually stripped, sanded, oiled and reassembled back to the base. The seat frame was not stripped since it as in excellent original condition.

So, anyway, here she is. Up on Trade Me in the next couple of days.

The hard (back)yards - sourcing product

Before we can sell this to you, before we can have the oddly masochistic fun of restoring, before all this we have to source interesting items.

Trade Me has made that easier for sure. In the old days we would be out at 6.00am, circling the neighbourhood, tracking down garage sales to get in on a bargain before anyone else was having breakfast.

In the past year, we have been getting all our base material from Trade Me. Problem is, so does everyone else. And we have been joined on Trade Me by a number of regulars, all chasing the same pieces.

Its oddly expensive, this hobby. Given that the typical sofa consumes around eight metres of fabric, there is up to $400 in that alone. Finishing materials for the timberwork are around $50 a piece, and the labour is just too expensive to think about. Good thing its a hobby, 'cos at minimum wage we are loosing money!

So when we buy, it has to be cheap. Or free. Nothing else makes sense.

With scandi-style and 50's retro/kiwiana being so popular at the moment, its tough getting nice pieces to work on (we are down to our last six suites!).

So, if you have something that needs "doing" get in touch - we could be in the market, or could give you a great deal!

Mareta has a bath

Mareta has been sitting on our covered deck for the last couple of weeks waiting for us to clear other stuff out of the way. Today was her day - bath time!

Steel wool is wonderful stuff. Not the "steelo" type you get at the supermarket - go to the paint and decorating section of your hardware store and you will find it in a wide range of abrasive-nesses. The thing about steel wool is that it cleans and removes old paint and scuff marks, but unlike a course sandpaper it doesn't score the timber.

As you can see from the images, Mareta is still in good structural condition, but her surface finish is, franky, knackered. As we scrubbed, layers of dirt, oils and finishing products peeled away revealing a really nice grain structure.

I got a bit excited at the end of all this scrubbing and so I grabbed the squabs that we intend to sell Mareta with and took a couple of images to get an idea of how she will look. Hope you like it - our lady in red.

The black sheep

Ugly huh? You are soooooooo shallow!

This ugly duckling suite is going to be a serious (black) swan. OK, so some damn fool has applied a layer of acrylic black paint over the frame - so what?

With a couple of days of sanding and preparation, this frame set will be ready for refinishing and we are thinking that the ebony look is actually pretty styley.

So sit back from the screen a bit, squint a little and imagine an ebony frame with grain detail just coming through, and a set of subtle squabs in a beige heavy weave fabric - plain at a distance, but highly detailed close up.

I reckon ready to go by the end of September - post a comment if you have suggestions for a different finish.

Dumpster diving!

Inorganic rubbish collections - you gotta love them!

Today, I spotted a very sad Don concorde-arm sofa in a pile of inorganic due for collection. The folding frame looks like a number of very ADHD kids had spent five minutes jumping on it, and there are no cushions, but the base frame is good.

I'm going back for it tonight!

UPDATE: The frame is a wreck, not worth saving. Makes me feel a bit sick actually. However, it does have a host of good hardware that will be donated to other not-so-damaged pieces so they can live another day.

The rest is firewood.

Mareta, the Mangere sofa

Mareta arrived a few weeks ago. She came from the Auckland City Mission by way of Mangere Bridge, or Pont de Mangere for the more pretentious.

Mareta is a Morgan but is a little different. She folds down and is four-seater - so far, so typical. But her back rest is vertically doweled instead of sprung. Her seat uses the typical sofa suspension system with springs running front-to-back.

She is timbered in the sapele mahogany that was the norm for these units, and is currently showing the signs of her recent past - a few street scars and grazes, but nothing too damaging.

We will be pairing her up with a set of vibrant red squabs that we recently (We??? Jos...) recovered on spec for another sofa. The buyer for that sofa decided on a different upholstery, so these became spare.

Mareta is going to look great in these squabs so watch out for images on here and on Trade Me when we start to look for new owners for this classic lady.

Peggy gets new cushions

Peggy is our current lady in distress - she needed new covers on her squabs.

The foam on the seat squabs is still in good condition. It has held its shape and hasn't collapsed anywhere. Its clean and has retained its loft, so its going back.

We recently bought a roll (around 20 metres actually) of a soft grey/blue/lilac wool upholstery fabric. This is great looking - really simple, very light and soft feel, and should wear well.


Jos has the upholstery in hand. While I do all the hard work writing this blog, she is idling away making new covers. Its ok - I'm keeping her supplied with wine and coffee in equal quantities.

what is happening in Wellington?

We sold the aztec suite last night - thanks missfrivolous!

But here's the thing - the buyer is in Wellywood. So that's the second suite we have sold to a Wellington client in three weeks. We are really pleased that you think so much of our product that you feel the need to go long distance, but I have to ask: is there a shortage of good retro furniture in the lower North Island?

Peggy, a cane back three-seater

We bought Peggy last week. She is a three-seat fixed sofa with delcately curved and shaped armrests and legs, and a cane or wicker backrest in perfect condition.

If she were human, she would be that lithe, late 30's almost-a-model woman that looks good in anything. Which is fortunate, since her dusty pink seat and back cushions are a fashion error of huge proportions.

We cannot find any maker's identification on her - feel free to tell us if you know her breeding.

Peggy has recently had a slightly hard time. A tradesman builder has attempted to fix her by adding some self-driving screws to strategic points on her frame. We will have to repair this misguided surgery, and at the moment we are looking for teak dowels that can be used to at least match the frame and look original. Her timberwork, apart from the scars of surgery, is in good condition, and a gentle sand and re-oil should be all thats required

We will also re-cover her cushions in a sympathetic (probably very simple) fabric that will allow her to show off her great lines and lovely backrest, or to "cover-up" if you want.

At the moment its raining and dark, and full image photos are not possible - we'll post them when conditions improve and allow you to watch the progress on this pretty little piece.

We hope to have Peggy up on Trade Me in about a month (late August 2009), so keep an eye out for her!

the aztec or tapa suite

This suite was one of the first we got, and was attacked enthusiastically!

It was purchased from the outskirts of Hamilton and so presented to opportunity for a road trip. As a bonus, we spent a relaxed half-hour opposite the seller's house watching a model aircraft do an aerobatic display just for us.

The suite had been advertised as being valued at over $600. We paid significantly less than that, and a good thing too. It was in a pretty bad way cosmetically, but as is typical of these designs, the bones were good.

Back home, we stripped the chairs completely threw away the cushions, and sanded. And sanded. Then we thought, stuff-it, paint stripper. Then we sanded some more.

Sick of sanding, we smoothed everything off and applied a whole lot of Cabots urethane. The chairs looked stunning.

Around this time, we found some fabric on Trade Me and Jos got stuck in to the upholstery side. Wildly overconfident, she went with a piped seam to the boxed seat and back cushions. 12 metres of fabric ended up giving its all to the cause. They looked great.

Then we turned our attention to the sofa, and decided that the folding part was fine, but the base frame needed the treatment. So we sanded some more. And urethaned.

We were well pleased with the result and put it all up on Trade Me feeling real good about it. The chairs and sofa were photographed separately and images posted. Anyone spot our first mistake?

A buyer asked for some more images and it was only then that we put the chairs and sofa together in the same light. The frames looked very different - two unmatched shades of timber. On closer inspection, it turned out we had not completely cleaned up the arms of the chairs, and this was the cause of the mis-match.

Since then, we have (you guessed it) sanded some more. A slightly tinted Cabots urethane has brought the chairs and the sofa into a match and we finally have a product we are happy to sell.

a change of identity

We have been trading on Trade Me for a few years under Ashton's account - aardvarkash10. While thats all well and good, we intend to concentrate a bit more on the furniture as we have a lot of it, the result of compulsive and impulsive purchases!

So, we have started a new Trade Me account - loungelizards. The tough part in this is that we start with no feedback history. No-one knows whether we are a good reliable trader, or some fly-by-night rip-off merchant.

Thems the breaks.

So, over the next week or two, you will find us migrating the furniture and retro stuff to this new account name. Its not a tactic to disguise anything - far from it! Its just us trying to separate our hobby of furniture from the sports gear, music, lego and other stuff that we also buy and sell.

All you need to remember - loungelizards is us in our furniture and retro fetish, aardvarkash10 is us with all our other shortcomings!

Trade Me, furniture, and the tyrany of character limits

Its all very well this Trade Me on line selling, but its hard for people buying to get a sense of what goes into a piece of work. The limited space and time of a Trade Me listing makes any description fleeting and any image temporary.

So here is where you can follow the story of the pieces that we list for sale. You can even find out what they sold for and, as a buyer, you can make comment on your satisfaction (or otherwise!) with your purchase.

At the moment our kick is 1950's to 1970's scandinavian-inspired New Zealand furniture. Its light and relaxed style suits New Zealand well, and it looks great in a wide range of settings. We hope the images and stories here inspire you to look into the style, or if you are already a dedicated follower, to consider your next piece!