“Looks like a forest in here,” our grandson says, peering through the fronds of a fern. We’re in our “new” (old) living room.

Wait. Let me rewind. Months ago, we discovered rampant household mold. Dreamer’s health was at stake, so we scheduled remediation.

In the process, we also discarded many cherished possessions.

Rugs, favorite chairs, couch — but Great-grandma’s Victorian-Era, Eastlake loveseat?

Most fabrics can be cleaned, but microscopic mold spores can penetrate and colonize foam inserts, eiderdown, and woolly batting. Decades ago, we rescued our elegant heirloom with its masterfully tied coil springs (increasingly rare these days) from my grandma’s garage. Perhaps even then it harbored mycotoxins.

Constructed with rigid, strictly perpendicular seating, why gut, then reupholster, the chronically uncomfortable?

It had to go.

But a dumpster? I couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

A quirky idea beckoned.

Picture an aging heiress
in her garage, poised
to dismantle what is,
these days, a dying art . . .

Strange, how a project can mirror life

Strip ornamental trim (all non-essentials must go).
Peel away fabric, then muslin lining (aiii, this feels personal).
Trash the batting (i.e., forfeit risky comfort).

Kneel (does it always come down to this?).

Pry off tacks and burlap webbing (bandage hands, as needed).
Sever twine network, seemingly miles of it (to the novice, a baffling cat’s cradle).
Pause. Sit back on heels . . . and marvel (who goes to such trouble these days?). Three long ingeniously knotted lengths of jute, one per row, somehow compress the tensile force of 18 vintage, coil springs. Exactly spaced knots create a shallow dome shape — in the trade, known as “crown-tied.”

Utter deconstruction — can it nudge us nearer the kingdom?

Yank springs and outer rail (goodbye, tension; farewell, anchoring core support).
Upend frame (maybe upside-down is the new normal).
Cut away delicate, black-cambric dust cover (everything now exposed).

A dying art, achingly personal

How fatalistic I sometimes feel about “dying to self.” Resignation. A shrug. Other times, fear weaves an inner knotwork akin to our loveseat innards.

Oh, how the dearly-familiar shape and angle of life can be skewed by a loved one’s illness, or scary symptoms yet-to-be-diagnosed!

“Rule out one thing at a time,” the specialists say.

Well then, go after each broken, embedded tack (roughly 20 gazillion).
Ponder tack strips: scratched, splintered, nail-scarred (oh dear . . .).
Beautify the salvaged (to deter slivers, adhere new braid, gently mitering corners).

The art of dying: “He knows our frame . . .”

WHEN READY, fill emptiness with the living. Literally.

I position the loveseat frame in front of the window, cram the opening with flowers, house plants, and summer coleus prepped for winter. Yes, it looks like a forest in here. And perhaps, a legacy. The unusable, now reconfigured, thrives, lit by four glass dragonflies adorning the lamp I place in the center.

“A sense of gracefulness shimmers,” artist/author Jan Richardson writes in support of reclaiming the dignity of domestic tasks.

She also quotes author Esther de Waal saluting an imagined, Celtic-era housekeeper:

“She has made the mundane the edge of glory.”

Friends, are you in the process of dismantling? How might you inhabit the growing edge?

P.S. DREAMERS RECENT EEG ruled out epilepsy. THANK YOU SO MUCH for your prayers and words of encouragement!

HISTORICAL NOTE: Charles Lock Eastlake’s carved walnut, cherry, and rosewood furniture eschewed over-the-top Victorian furniture design, pioneering a cleaner, “reformed style” (read more here).

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PHOTOS by Dreamer and yours truly.