Knocking on wood: A furniture saga

Focussed clicking or flea market trawling—how do you pick your pieces?

I’ ve sunk into a depression,” said a friend while sipping on a gin cocktail in my living room on a Sunday morning. I adopted a sympathetic manner, expecting a heart-to-heart about existential angst exacerbated by a never-ending pandemic. Instead, he pointed to the cushion on the three-seater sofa under him, disproving my usual assumption that people are forever looking to discuss deeply emotional matters, whether at a poolside retreat or a leisurely brunch. Now there’s one more piece of furniture to fix in my attention-seeking flat. Argh.

Jane Austen among Mad Men

You now have everything from antique four-post beds to side tables crafted out of beer bottles at a click. It’s a problem of plenty. As a result, you’re never really happy unless you have the absolutely perfect art deco bar standing proudly beside a crockery cupboard out of Jane Austen set at a jaunty angle from a centre table that flaunts just the right amount of pop sentiment without falling into kitsch. A far cry from the middle-class aesthetic of my growing-up years: Formica-covered TV units, Godrej steel cupboards and awkwardly-angled chairs upholstered in a ribbed velvety fabric for extra pleasure.

Yellowing photographs in old albums tell a different story. The charming mid-century modern aesthetic was ubiquitous in our grandparents’ era. One of the major enticements of the series Mad Men, exploring The American Dream of the ’50s and ’60s, was its production design. The period detail was impeccable, from the chamfered edges of a table to the industrial shape of a lamp. I often caught myself staring longingly at the furniture when I should by rights have been ogling a powerful and glib man in a suit. Led by members of the Bauhaus school of design who escaped Germany around WWII, the mid-century modernists gave the world a visual language that never seems to go out of style, epitomised by the cantilevered chair by Marcel Breuer.

Flea market romance

There’s a lot to admire in The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, the novel that won the 2014 Pulitzer prize for fiction. For instance, the nearly 800-page novel frequently props up my laptop when it needs elevation. But its contents, too, can often delight. I remember being first bewildered and then seduced by the lovingly crafted details about antique furniture restoration through the character, Hobie. There’s such a sumptuousness about it all, you can almost smell the resin and polish, wood and metal. It’s a book that allows you to feast on detail, and who is more attuned to detail than a loving restorer of old and damaged furniture?

AS YOU LIKE IT

You now have everything from antique four-post beds to side tables crafted out of beer bottles at a click

Any trip to a flea market is an exercise in time travel. You step into one of those sneezy markets for a desk or a sideboard; you step out with a whole new perspective. Yes, that sounds foolishly romantic, but hear me out. As you squeeze your way through narrow lanes of perilously stacked furniture, you realise what you’re seeking is not just an object of specific dimensions but some kind of connection with history. Material memory that you can bring into your home: a living remnant of a story you may not know, but are free to imagine.

There is a crack in everything

Interior decoration: the very term gives me the creeps. Whether you live in a tenement or a mansion, it is natural to want to set it up in ways that please you. But oh, the excesses that are perpetrated in the name of décor. Tired of the baroque dressers of celebs and the uncomfortably minimalist chairs of restaurants, I am drawn to furniture that is, in the immortal words of Goldilocks, “just right”.

Which brings me back to my depressed couch. There is some kind of perverse satisfaction in letting that one sunken seat stay sunken. Or allowing the wooden surface of the bar to accumulate water rings. (Yes, I’m an absolute freak.) An antique stool I inherited from my grandmother doddered for months before it finally lost a leg.

“Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in”

I’ll hide behind misapplied Leonard Cohen lyrics until I cannot avoid calling over the carpenter any longer.

ANY TRIP TO A FLEA MARKET IS AN EXERCISE IN TIME TRAVEL. YOU STEP INTO ONE OF THOSE SNEEZY MARKETS FOR A DESK OR A SIDEBOARD; YOU STEP OUT WITH A WHOLE NEW PERSPECTIVE.

rehanamunir@gmail.com Follow @rehana_munir on Twitter and Instagram

Text by Jamal Shaikh, Karishma Kuenzang and Lubna Salim Photo shot exclusively for HT Brunch by Subi Samuel

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