(no subject)
Happy 4th of July!
We are not celebrating today. Obvs.
I spent this 4th of July cleaning an old chair and it was glorious. Furniture restoration would be a good hobby. It's a spiffy 60's mid-century modern chair where the arms look like surf boards. My Uncle John kept it in his cottage in Pymatuming, but before that it was the chair my mom used to do her homework in. She of course thought it was ugly and old-fashioned then.
I asked if I could have the chair a year ago when we were taking a last look at my uncle's house, after stopping by probate court for a task they make you do in person in Ashtabula county. (While there, I read on Wikipedia that Ashtabula means "plenty of fish to go around" in Lenape.) My mom said I could have the chair but wouldn't let me take it home that day. She had to wait and get her brother's permission so he wouldn't accuse her of stealing it. I asked about it every few months but there was no progress, and I'd almost forgotten about it yesterday when she texted saying they had it in their garage and we could take it home after we came for dinner that night.
Fortunately it fit in the Prius, which we had just bought a week ago to replace the Forester. When we bough the Forester we imagined loading and unloading lots of furniture into it from estate sales and antique shops to fill out new mid-century modern home. That didn't exactly happen.
I figured we'd probably have to throw away the chair's cushions, the whole cabin reeked of mold and mildew and as we drove home with the chair in the back the scent was strong. But what I didn't expect was that the scent had penetrated the wood. After the chair, sans-cushions, spent a night inside the whole living room smelled like the cottage; mildewy.
I set to work at it this morning as soon as I finished my coffee. Still in my pajamas, I ran the vacuum attachment all of the chair, trying to get all the cobwebs and dirt from deep in the crevices. Then I polished it with some orange Milsek, which I always hope will work miracles. But the chair still reeked.
Jim carried it out to the backyard for me, while I googled "moldy wood furniture." An article from BobVila.com gave me a plan. I had already tried their first suggestion, cleaning and vacuuming. The next step was to spray it with a solution of water and distilled white vinegar. We couldn't find our spray bottle so I rubbed the vinegar on with a paper towel and let it dry for an hour in the sun. But when I came to wash it off it still smelled like mold.
The next step was to scrub it with a stiff bristle brush dipped in bleach solution. We couldn't find our bleach (did the neighbors take it when the moved out?!) so Jim had to get some from the grocery store. I spent a good 20 minutes scrubbing it all over 2-3 times with the bleach solution.
It didn't take long for the bleach solution to dry in the sun. An hour later, after we drank some beer on the porch and talked about the state of our nation, I rubbed the bleach off with a damp cloth. Then, when it was dry, I rubbed it with the Milsek again because it was looking pretty weathered after all that bleach.
A couple of hours have passed now and I think the bleach worked. The mold smell is gone. Now it smells faintly of bleach and orange oil. It's sitting in the corner now by the TV where I always wanted to put it, but still no cushions. I doubt we'll get new ones before we move in two weeks.
I thought we might be able to avoid buying new cushions by washing the covers and just hoping they covered up the smell of the foam cushions, but we can't even get the smell out of the covers. At least we couldn't today. Maybe tomorrow I'll see if the internet has any ideas. I wish I knew how to sew new cushions.
Anyway, I'm glad we were able to save the chair. Each time I cleaned it and it still smelled I imagined the ad I was going to have to put on Criagslist, "Cool MCM Chair-moldy smell though."
If the bleach didn't work, the next step was to sand it. That seems impossible right now, but by next month we'll have a garage. It's a pretty small garage, but we could keep a few tools in there. Maybe I could sand the chair and refinish it. And maybe I could finally re-dye the leather Saarinen armchair I bought in Baltimore.
I just got an alert on my phone that The U.S. and South Korea conducted joint-missile exchanges after North Korea launched an ICBM.
Jim is cooking dinner in the kitchen without me. We're having Korea beef bowls. Just a coincidence.
We are not celebrating today. Obvs.
I spent this 4th of July cleaning an old chair and it was glorious. Furniture restoration would be a good hobby. It's a spiffy 60's mid-century modern chair where the arms look like surf boards. My Uncle John kept it in his cottage in Pymatuming, but before that it was the chair my mom used to do her homework in. She of course thought it was ugly and old-fashioned then.
I asked if I could have the chair a year ago when we were taking a last look at my uncle's house, after stopping by probate court for a task they make you do in person in Ashtabula county. (While there, I read on Wikipedia that Ashtabula means "plenty of fish to go around" in Lenape.) My mom said I could have the chair but wouldn't let me take it home that day. She had to wait and get her brother's permission so he wouldn't accuse her of stealing it. I asked about it every few months but there was no progress, and I'd almost forgotten about it yesterday when she texted saying they had it in their garage and we could take it home after we came for dinner that night.
Fortunately it fit in the Prius, which we had just bought a week ago to replace the Forester. When we bough the Forester we imagined loading and unloading lots of furniture into it from estate sales and antique shops to fill out new mid-century modern home. That didn't exactly happen.
I figured we'd probably have to throw away the chair's cushions, the whole cabin reeked of mold and mildew and as we drove home with the chair in the back the scent was strong. But what I didn't expect was that the scent had penetrated the wood. After the chair, sans-cushions, spent a night inside the whole living room smelled like the cottage; mildewy.
I set to work at it this morning as soon as I finished my coffee. Still in my pajamas, I ran the vacuum attachment all of the chair, trying to get all the cobwebs and dirt from deep in the crevices. Then I polished it with some orange Milsek, which I always hope will work miracles. But the chair still reeked.
Jim carried it out to the backyard for me, while I googled "moldy wood furniture." An article from BobVila.com gave me a plan. I had already tried their first suggestion, cleaning and vacuuming. The next step was to spray it with a solution of water and distilled white vinegar. We couldn't find our spray bottle so I rubbed the vinegar on with a paper towel and let it dry for an hour in the sun. But when I came to wash it off it still smelled like mold.
The next step was to scrub it with a stiff bristle brush dipped in bleach solution. We couldn't find our bleach (did the neighbors take it when the moved out?!) so Jim had to get some from the grocery store. I spent a good 20 minutes scrubbing it all over 2-3 times with the bleach solution.
It didn't take long for the bleach solution to dry in the sun. An hour later, after we drank some beer on the porch and talked about the state of our nation, I rubbed the bleach off with a damp cloth. Then, when it was dry, I rubbed it with the Milsek again because it was looking pretty weathered after all that bleach.
A couple of hours have passed now and I think the bleach worked. The mold smell is gone. Now it smells faintly of bleach and orange oil. It's sitting in the corner now by the TV where I always wanted to put it, but still no cushions. I doubt we'll get new ones before we move in two weeks.
I thought we might be able to avoid buying new cushions by washing the covers and just hoping they covered up the smell of the foam cushions, but we can't even get the smell out of the covers. At least we couldn't today. Maybe tomorrow I'll see if the internet has any ideas. I wish I knew how to sew new cushions.
Anyway, I'm glad we were able to save the chair. Each time I cleaned it and it still smelled I imagined the ad I was going to have to put on Criagslist, "Cool MCM Chair-moldy smell though."
If the bleach didn't work, the next step was to sand it. That seems impossible right now, but by next month we'll have a garage. It's a pretty small garage, but we could keep a few tools in there. Maybe I could sand the chair and refinish it. And maybe I could finally re-dye the leather Saarinen armchair I bought in Baltimore.
I just got an alert on my phone that The U.S. and South Korea conducted joint-missile exchanges after North Korea launched an ICBM.
Jim is cooking dinner in the kitchen without me. We're having Korea beef bowls. Just a coincidence.