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  • Hi, I’m Emily

    Emily Fazio

    I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle.

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Enter The Safari

July 22, 2013

Hey! We moved the couch! That’s good progress on our road to making this place cozy. I can’t believe I live in a place with a room big enough to accommodate a floating couch with ease.

Oh look, it's a floating sofa. Our living room is so big.

The big rooms are proving very hard to organize and decorate, and we actually tried about 3 different living room orientations over the weekend before getting tired of pushing couches and calling this fine for now.

If we’ve picked up on anything, it’s that we’ll need some mega furniture to fill this space, and I’m not talkin’ about a lot of little pieces, what we need are a few big pieces to help with the scale. For the living room, we’re already shopping for a big coffee table, keeping our eyes peeled for something vintage/mid-century/hardwood that will complement some of the more modern retail furniture–like a mega sectional–that we expect to acquire.

What we did happen upon recently, were a set of vintage safari chairs on Craigslist. In one of those late-night-email-the-seller-from-bed-in-glee moments, I set out to check them out for myself. It’s been a long time since I’ve allowed myself to indulge in Craigslisting, because in the last house we were really tight for space and buying something new would mean replacing what was already there.

Our new-old 1940's safari chairs.

Obviously, because the chairs are here and now situated in our mish-mashed living room, you can tell that we bought them, two of them in great condition for $80 total. From what I can tell, and I can’t find a lot of information about them online, is that these are 1940’s safari folding chairs with hardwood frames and pleather seats. It’s not real leather even though it looks and feels real, I know this because the underside of the seat is noticibly canvas, but we’re fine with that. Who knew they made great lookin’ pleather in the 1940’s?

Pretty pleather on our 1940's safari folding chairs.

The chairs were manufactured by Gold Medal Folding Furniture Company and really only needed a little bit of clean-up once we brought them home; Gold Medal is still in existence today, one of those iconic brands that has been around since 1892 and you’re probably used to seeing all over but never bothered to learn much about. They’re known for the original director’s chair, but apparently went rogue on occasion and made really stellar pieces, like these safari chairs.

Gold Medal Folding Furniture Company chairs from the mid-century.

One thing worth noting, there were scratches on the legs. Before getting down with diluted Murphy Oil Soap in water, I used the Pinterest-wild trick of rubbing a walnut along the scratches. True story, the oil in the walnut miraculously makes the scuffs vanish and disguises scratches, unless of course they’re gouges. They’re walnuts, not wood filler After using several pieces of chopped walnut from our own cupboard, I continued to disassembled the chairs and massaged the hardwood components peacefully, pleather and all, with a dampened rag.

They are legitimately folding chairs, which is both cool and a little uncommon for day-to-day living. What’s especially nice about these versus the modern director’s chair is that the back support shifts too, pivoting to provide extreme back comfort. It’s probably what sold us. I’m writing this post in one of them now. It’s amazingly contouring and comfortable for my slouching spine.

The back support on our safari chairs shifts! A nice touch to contour a chair to your back.

Now try hard to imagine them in a room with a different couch, a huge ottoman/coffee table, whiter walls, fewer exposed routers and modems, and light wood floors. Fitting. Right? Right. We have such a long way to go with this place.

Our living room is a very, very slow evolution.

Share

Being Thrifty  / Living Room

Emily
I'm a home improvement enthusiast, living a very merry DIY lifestyle. You can find me writing for HGTV and DIY Network, follow me on facebook and instagram, or drop me a note if you'd like. I love notes.

14 Comments


Kristin
July 22, 2013 at 11:24 am
Reply

I’m so excited to see you got those Safari chairs! I’ve actually been eyeing them on Craislist for some time now, but like you, I didn’t want to replace anything I already had. They look great in your mid-mod home! Can’t wait to watch it all come together.



    Emily
    July 22, 2013 at 12:12 pm

    That’s funny! They are perfect, and came from a very cool home too.

Harper
July 22, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Reply

Gold Medal as in the flour company? Or two different companies by the same name?



    Emily
    July 22, 2013 at 2:43 pm

    Seemingly unrelated. The flour is associated with Betty Crocker, the chair company is cited as being a division of TLT Inc.

ww55d
July 22, 2013 at 4:35 pm
Reply

looking good! just wondering where you typically shop for your furnishings generally around Rochester? I’ve been able to find some pretty good deals at Metro Retro down on Park Ave and Greenovation on mmm Main/Culver area (Gary.. great guy..) .. just wondering if you had any other lesser known locations?



    Emily
    July 22, 2013 at 10:27 pm

    I have yet to visit Greenovation but it’s been on my list for a awhile now. I’ve gotten a lot of good finds at the Charlotte General Store on Lake Ave., it’s very hit or miss and very down and dirty, but the owner is good about keeping an eye out for special items you’re looking for. ReHouse is always good depending on what you need, and Metro Retro is great, we just visited there last week for the first time in a long time, but I don’t have many other go-to’s. No “secret” go-to’s at least. Craigslist and the random yard sales is where I’ve lucked out the most.

Diane
July 22, 2013 at 5:20 pm
Reply

Great find – and versatile! They look really solid. Can’t wait to see what you find for a rocking chair for that baby on the way.



    Emily
    July 22, 2013 at 10:23 pm

    Not to disappoint, but I did just buy a chair for the nursery. I paid what feels like a small fortune, but is hopefully something that will transition well into our normal furniture once we don’t need it for the baby anymore. It’s beautiful and modern, but not mid-century mod.

Mark Winters
July 22, 2013 at 8:34 pm
Reply

Love the chairs!!!!



craftyb
July 23, 2013 at 8:57 am
Reply

Emily- are you on the estate sale email list? Every thursday/friday I get an email listing typically at least 10 different sales in the area WITH PICTURES. It’s great for window shopping and scoping out the deals ahead of time. http://www.estatesales.net/estate-sales/NY/Rochester.aspx



    Emily
    July 23, 2013 at 9:16 am

    KELLY! THAT IS DANGEROUS! And amazing. Thanks for sharing!

Cait @ Hernando House
July 23, 2013 at 10:18 am
Reply

Those chairs are awesome!!



Brian
September 27, 2014 at 5:42 pm
Reply

I have one of those chairs. I know it may sound strange, but I put a sheep skin rug on it and it is the most comfortable chair I have owned!



Candy@Habitat2Home
August 13, 2015 at 12:14 am
Reply

I found this post while doing research on a pair of orange ones with ottoman! Great info! Thank you. I, too, found mine on CL. Love them, and you are so right about the comfort!



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