Let's Play... Name. That. COUCH!

I picked up this couch on Craigslist in the Inland Empire about 5 or 6 years ago for maybe $25 bucks. I saw the ad, wrote them an email, told them I'd take it, asked them to take the ad down, figured out a time, and drove to Uhaul to rent a van. I lived in Riverside at the time, and I made the decision to chance the afternoon traffic coming back from LA to nip out and grab the couch around 3pm. So down the 215 I went. At the big flyover interchange in Riverside, I got onto the 60 and headed toward the west. Out past the Ontario airport, driving toward the Pacific.

If you've never had the pleasure of driving in California, let me give you a brief description. Now, if you're from California, you can't get mad at my description here, because deep down, you know what I'm going to say here is true. Okay - so imagine you have an infinitely wide freeway (they're not infinitely wide, really, but they are very wide). Now imagine that all of the lanes are full of cars. Now, imagine that all of the cars are no more than three car lengths in front and behind you, and that they are all moving at exactly the same speed. Now, imagine what happens when additional cars try to merge into traffic. Okay, now you have the good part of the picture.

Now - on top of all of this, suppose that every 8th driver is either texting or talking on their cell phone (not hands free - but there is growing research that says 'hands free' really doesn't lessen your distraction), all while moving 75 - 80 mph. Every 5th driver is touching up their makeup or hair. Every 16th driver is reading the newspaper (I'm not kidding - I have seen this surprisingly often). Every 12th driver is blasting some sort of utterly repetitious percussion-based droning noise, amplified through a pair of 500 watt plate amps and output through 15 inch subs into the trunk. You can hear their trunk deck lid rattle when they go by with your A/C blasting on full while listening to your radio at a moderate level and with the Santa Anas whipping you all over the road. Every 3rd driver seems oblivious to the whole fray, and every 5th driver has some degree of road rage. Just about everyone is so distracted by all of this, by the overabundance of billboards offering such delights as: "Breast Augmentation for only $999!", and by each other, that people routinely forget that their exit is coming up, and will amazingly cut across three lanes of traffic to veer off the exit at the last possible second while maintaining their speed. And then there are the rubber-necker traffic jams. Every time there is an accident of any sort, the entire freeway - all five, six, seven lanes - they all slow to a crawl. Just have to see what you can see. Any body parts? No - damn.

Yep, I miss California. Nope, I don't miss the traffic. Especially the 91.

So I pull up to an apartment complex in either Chino or Pomona - one of those places. Doesn't really matter when you're that close to LA though - it's all one giant suburb of LA at that point. I texted the folks to let them know that I was there, and I went up one flight of stairs to their door. They met me at the door - great couple, really nice. Went inside. Nice apartment - lots of vintage stuff everywhere. And cats. Great. I'm really, really allergic to cats. Okay, so a steam cleaning is in order. But the couch is glorious. It has all of the best features of couches designed by the big names. It has the light maple legs and low, straight arms of a McCobb; the low, wide, deep stance of a Wormley; the tufted back and three legs across the front of a Baughman. It has only two cushions and square, but rolled arms. And there is kind of an upholstered applique or medallion that covers the front of the arms. A really neat detail. I couldn't get the money out of my pocket fast enough. Might have been the best $25 buck I've ever spent. The van ended up being about $75 or $80 bucks round trip and I had to put in a few bucks in gas. So let's just call it $100 all told.

I had planned on getting the couch reupholstered right away, but I had an Ohlsson Model 4410 Sonet Chair that I had just bought fabric for - and I had already had an estimate done at a nearby upholstery place. That chair was already on their schedule (and had been for nearly 2 months), and would cost about $400 bucks in labor (it's a pretty complex chair). So on the back burner it went. And I moved. And then I moved. And, finally - I really moved. And then I started kicking myself in the ass. Not because I moved to North Dakota, but because - have you tried to find an upholsterer up here? There really aren't all that many choices.

So I went out to Douglas, ND one day to check out one of the few upholsterers I could find that was doing furniture jobs and not just cars and boats. I showed up, having never been in Douglas before, and drove by Rice Lake, and was amazed to see submerged houses and barns, raised roads, and a lake that looked like it was swallowing everything. Apparently the lake has been pretty steadily rising for a number of years even against efforts to pump off some of the water. I found the address for Pam's Upholstery, and went into her very nice workshop opposite her house. It was bright and spacious and there were a number of upholstered pieces in various stages of being either stripped down or put back together. She gave me a tour, showed me the pieces she was working on, and we talked for quite a while. I showed her photos of the couch, told her I wanted it exactly the same, but with new fabric and any weak spots repaired, new cushions, and to save the fabric on the back for a pair of throw pillows. I wanted to respect the history of this piece by preserving a bit of it. So we agreed on a price, and she said she'd drop by to pick it up the next time she was in town.

Fast forward about a month, and she was back to drop off the finished couch. The fabric I ordered for the couch was by Michael Jon Designs in a design they call 'Calvin' in a color they call 'Meadow'. The photo to the right is from their website, but the color is really not that accurate. It's much greener in person - almost like a combination of the color of Knoll's chartreuse boucle and a stick of celery. I think the color on the finished couch shot below is much more accurate. I originally ordered a couple swatches of different colorways of the Calvin fabric because it is so retro - it looks like the perfect fabric for a mid century piece, and it's woven, so it does work really well. When I bought it from decorative fabrics direct (can't buy it from Michael Jon directly), it cost about $23 bucks a yard. I bought 15 yards, because I didn't want to have to buy more. Turns out I had plenty. I think I easily have enough for two more cushions if the need arises to replace the cushion covers. I like that.

I think it turned out amazingly well. The fabric is a bit fidgety - by that, I mean that dog hairs somehow manage to become interwoven with the weave of the individual yarn threads. So, they can be a bit difficult to get off - you can't just brush them off with your hand. And all of our dogs are black - so the hairs show up really, really well. The best thing I've found so far is a lint roller with the sticky tape. I go through 7 or 8 sheets every time, but it comes out looking great. The fabric does pick, though - so be careful letting your dogs or cats onto a piece you've done in this fabric. Otherwise it's worn like a champ - no issues other than those. And it really does look great! The only niggling detail that might bother me a bit is that there are 5 tufts on the back instead of the original 6, but I can live with that. Pam did a great job!

But Who Made the Couch?

Ah, now to the crux of the post. I've looked, and looked, and researched, and pored over pictures of mid century couches, old furniture catalogs, and image searches with every conceivable combination of search terms. It is likely that the front of the arm detail (see second image) may not be the original detail. That pale tan woven fabric that I thought was original - well, it is not this couch's first rodeo. It's been recovered before. A LONG time before. The original fabric is kind of a peach-tan with a kind of small bow-tie kind of pattern - also a woven fabric. Pam saved a piece for future reference. If I find it, I'll take a photo and post it here for reference. So the arms could have looked completely different. There are a few couches by Flexsteel that I've seen that have some similar lines, but nothing that is the same. And nothing with the cool maple legs. I don't know who made this awesome couch.

Has anyone seen a similar couch before? With the same 'square rolled' arms? If you have, please leave a comment and help put this mystery to bed! I can't wait to hear your suggestions!

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10/25/16 Update

I was just browsing through some images on Google, and I came across this old ad for Kroehler. I think I may be onto something...

The arms are very close, the back has fixed cushions, and the three seat cushions are quite thin. The original re-upholstery job could easily have reorganized the seat cushions, and gone from three cushions to only two. It has three legs across the front, and the two side legs are offset slightly toward the sides. It has a slight angle to the back sides - they do not go straight up, but angle slightly inward, and the proportions look correct. I suppose I could do a comparison of the length to width ratios of the two couches in Adobe, but I'm thinking that I may have at least found out who the maker of the couch might be!