When ended our visit to Marana, Arizona today with an early wake-up call and flight back to Columbus. As a result, we were treated to a pretty sunrise over the Tortolita Mountains as we began our journey.
We did some furniture shopping recently, and just for the heck of it we hit a used furniture store as part of the due diligence process. Nothing gives you a sense of the enormously wide spectrum of potential furniture styles like going to a used furniture store, where the now disfavored looks of days gone by are on display for all to see.
The first room we entered was filled with ‘60s modern stuff, some of which is shown in the top photo above. It’s the kind of furniture you might see in the tidy living room of Laura and Rob Petrie or your friendly dentist’s office. The next room was filled with gigantic china cabinets, like the hulking, black and gilded monstrosity shown above. Whoever owned that monumental piece must have had a lot of floor space and an impressive dish collection.
The chair room was stuffed to the gills with a riotous collection of styles and colors, with armless Danish modern stuff cheek-by-jowl with armchairs that might have been used at a polite ladies’ tea. The room had every fabric, texture, color, pattern, fringe, and finish you could imagine in your wildest nightmare. My eyes actually hurt when I stumbled to the exit door.
And like every good used furniture store, this one featured some interesting odds and ends. Two of my favorites were the matching silver ram’s head stools with striped fabric and the gold swan white bench that the goddess Hera might have lounged on during a relaxing day on Mt. Olympus.
In all, it was a most impressive display of the styles and tastes of days gone by. And like all good used furniture stores, it very much helped us decide what we didn’t want.
Webner House 