Ravings of a Textual Deviant

I have a research challenge that has exhausted my paltry research skills.

I am looking for information about the Charak Furniture Company of Boston, MA. I have one of their pieces, a revolving bookcase, that was sent to me by my grandmother. I’d like to get an idea of its value in order to find out if I need a special insurance rider for it. However, there’s not a lot of information out there on the company itself, and although its pieces pop up pretty regularly in auction catalogs, I can’t find any mention that they ever made revolving bookcases, despite the label on mine.

So far, I have discovered that Charak was based in Boston, and considered a very fine furniture- and cabinetmaker. They appear to have been in business from the late 1920s until the 50s or 60s. They were originally known for traditional styles and colonial reproductions, but ultimately ended up making a midcentury modern line of furniture. Many pieces are numbered, and all of them appear to have been handmade with very nice woods, like mahogany and maple. The postwar pieces are allegedly hard to come by; the item I have is dated 1949. They were competitors with Kaplan Furniture of Cambridge, MA (”Beacon Hill Collection”) and the Old Colony Furniture Co. of Boston, MA and, later Nashua, NH. One of their prominent designers was Tommi Parzinger.

This item looks quite similar to mine, but the inlay pattern is different, and mine has a leather top.

We hadn’t even finished the current project before we started discussing what the next one is.

As usual, I am not handling the cold well…and it was effing cold these past few days. I asked M. if the thought there was a way to put a sauna somewhere in the house. I was prepared to sacrifice a closet to the cause…but M. thinks big. He wants to turn the laundry room into a laundry closet, and use the extra space to put a wet/dry sauna in the master bath. This would involve a lot of plumbing, electrical, and drywall work. It is an ambitious project, to say the least.

I love it when he thinks big.

To my great surprise, people not only read this stuff, but inquired after the pictures. My apologies for not getting it done sooner. Your patience is hereby rewarded thusly:

We didn’t quite get the room finished. Mostly, this is my fault, for acting like we were on vacation—sleeping in, visiting friends and family, seeing movies, and so on. There’s still some trim to paint and put up, the closet doors need to be painted and put back up, and some of the trim in the room needs touch-up work on the paint. Also, the morons builders used a light switch box, rather than a sturdier light fixture box on the old ceiling fixture, and neglected to actually fasten it to anything like, say, a ceiling joist (or beam, or whatever you call it). This means more effort than originally anticipated to install the ceiling fan/light fixture. I’m holding off moving one desk and all the sewing things back into the room for now, because I don’t want to move them until the trim is up. The corner shelves for the TV and DVD player aren’t made yet. And the art is not yet back up.

And I don’t have any pictures yet, despite my best intentions. But trust me, it’s fabulous, even in its unifinished state.

The good news is, the room is yoga-ready; I tested it last night. The floor is completely done, and looks beautiful. It reinforces the color of the walls, and even in dim daylight and candlelight, the room glows. M. learned a lot from putting in the hallway floor, and the door transitions look great. The new bookshelf is put together, and both sets of shelves are in the room and loaded up, as is the closet. One desk is already in the room. I have a small-but-powerful space heater, which gets the room nice and toasty in fairly short order; the CD player and CDs are in there, and I have plenty of space for my mat. I can certainly get two, and possibly even three people in there for yoga, although three would be very tight. Still, that means that I can at least do private classes. Not that I expect to do a lot of that in the near future, but it is nice to have the option.

So, we M. will put the finishing touches on the room over the next several days as time allows. But I have my craft/yoga space, and I love it.

Subfloor installed - Check

Walls prepped and painted (a fresh coat of the same color) - Check

Feline Inspection - Passed

Bamboo Installation - In progress

Pictures later!

So, this is a little bit behind, but not terribly so, given that we planned on not working on the room Monday or Tuesday, what with being out of town and all.

On Sunday, we got the room completely cleared, as you can see below.

M. got the carpet and foam, and tack strips up,

With Minx’s help, of course.

And as of this morning, we are mostly down to subfloor.

Magnus remains dubious,

but M. and I are thrilled with how well deconstruction is going, and the only real snag we’ve hit is that we can’t take all the carpet, foam, and subfloor to the dump until the first weekend in January, as it’s only open on Saturdays, except the ones closest to Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Today, M. has already finished tear-down, and we’ll get the rest of the materials (bamboo floor has been acclimating since Sunday, and will be ready for installation tomorrow) and with any luck, start on the walls.

Stay tuned for breaking news!

Due to some vehicular difficulties, and a concurrent task, we did not get much of anything done today on the remodelling. In fact, all I have today is some “before” pictures.

The good news is that I expect that the car will need only repairs, not replacement, so we can actually go ahead with the project.

Fiancé and I both have the entire week of the 24th off, and will be celebrating the extremely obscure and ancient holiday known as Festival di Ritocco, or Remodelling Day. The room that currently serves as my office/craft room/guest room will become the yoga room/craft room. The festivities will commence with the ceremonial Rimozione del Tappeto Rosa Malvagità this weekend, and finish with a very celebratory Installazione della Mobilia Nuova, preferably on December 31st.

Stay tuned for more exciting coverage of our holiday!

This spring, my brother mentioned that he’s been using eco-lawn. He made it sound like the best thing since homemade bread, especially the part about only having to mow it once a month and not needing to water, pesticize, or fertilize. Anything that lets me be both ecological and lazy while still having a decent-looking yard sounded too good to pass up.

It’s not like we ever water, pesticize, or fertilize anyway. (Fiancé does the mowing, as the mower is decidedly un-ergonomic for me.) I have a very Darwinian attitude towards my landscaping. Anything desirable that is strong enough to survive on its own is better for it. Weeds that are strong enough to survive on their own are fodder for weed-eater-induced catharsis.

Finally, I couple of weeks ago, I shelled out for the 50-lb. bag.

So, last weekend, Fiancé took a break from re-siding the north face of the house (but that’s another story) and dethatched the lawn for what was probably the first time in eight years. After way, way, waaaaaay too much raking, we handed off our chemical-free grass clippings to my dad for some serious composting, and settled in to await the delivery of our magic beans seed.

Yesterday, I got out the spreader (apparently I’ve had one for some time, although I don’t remember acquiring it) and proceeded to sow about 17 lbs. of seed all over the lawn. And believe me, it needed it. Since then, I have been moving the sprinkler around the yard, hoping to encourage Supergrass to save us.

The $4 table, refinished.