In the world of collecting, restraint is rare. Flea-market junkies hang paintings behind doors because their wall space disappeared decades ago. Their homes are stacked to the rafters, transformed into personal warehouses of their favorite finds.
Not Ken Erwin. In flea-market parlance, Erwin is a “picker,” a keen eye who shops on behalf of collectors, museums and other dealers.
“I have a passion for beautifully designed objects,” he said, “but I’m not the guy who builds a pyramid of worldly possessions, then gets trapped in it like a pharaoh in a tomb.”
Erwin and his wife, Julie, bought their house from architect Tom Egidi, who built the structure as a residence and studio. These days, visitors will find a lingering appreciation for design, now in the form of the Erwins’ weathered walnut Eames stool on the deck or the steel Vladimir Kagan stool in the TV room.
Parsed throughout the three levels of the house are other prized finds: an Ilmari Tapiovaara stool that Erwin discovered in a Helsinki secondhand store for $20. There’s a Frank Lloyd Wright wood-and-leather stool he spied at an estate sale and a Tony Paul stool with pink legs and a cane-woven seat that cost less than $1 at a Hollywood prop house sale.
“It’s delicate, female,” he said softly of the Paul.
Erwin’s secret to living with a collection: Every time he buys something, he sells something.
“I’ve owned things for 10 minutes, and I’ve owned things for years,” he says. “I have no regret letting them go.”
That’s not to say letting go is easy. Erwin’s weakness: Modernist footstools and ottomans. He owns more than 100.
“Everyone has to have one emotional collection,” he said. But like a museum curator, he keeps most in storage and displays only a few, on a rotating basis, in his home.
“You can find anything, anywhere,” said Erwin, who used to unearth riches at estate and garage sales. Now, he said, other dealers have discovered these sources, and owners are more savvy to their furniture’s worth.
It’s easy to believe Erwin when he says that more than 30 years after he started, he still gets sweaty palms discovering something in the raw.
“You see it and it could be worth either $10,000 or nothing,” he said with a shrug. Regardless, if he likes its lines, he’ll rescue it.
“Long after I’m gone, I’ll be remembered for that,” Erwin said, sitting in his spartan living room.
“The items I find will never fall back to the darkness of a flea market again. That makes me feel good.”
By Lisa Boone
Los Angeles Times
In the eyes of furniture restorer Denise Karger, no vintage flea market find is too far gone for a 21st-century revival. Her advice for that Alvar Aalto armchair you scored? “Refurbish it the right way,” said Karger, who has run Lleonarts, a custom upholstery business in Los Angeles, for 15 years.
Here are her tips for choosing flea market furniture:
Big picture: When shopping at a bustling flea market, people often have a hard time visualizing the whole environment they’re furnishing, Karger said. They see single elements but don’t think about how those elements relate to the surrounding space. “People can fall in love with one piece and forget about an entire room,” she said.
Emotional response: “If you fall in love with it, buy it.” You can change the composition of a room to complement the scale of any new purchase. Taller legs or artwork, for example, can make a small, mid-century sofa with clean lines work in a larger room.
Basics: Look for the style you want – perhaps Victorian, midcentury or modern – then examine the bones of the piece. “You have to like the way it sits, and you have to like its design,” Karger said.
Springs: Examine each piece closely. “Sometimes it’s ripped and you can see the guts,” she said. Pull up the cushions and push down to see if a sofa has coil springs. Coil springs will give you a better “sit” and are a sign of quality. If you stumble upon a plum “find” that needs little work, Karger said, “just make sure the springs aren’t gone.”
Pitch: Sit in the chair or sofa and analyze the pitch – the angle of the back. Older couches are more likely to have been custom built, and they often have wonderful pitch, Karger said.
Stuffing: Some older furniture at flea markets will have horsehair stuffing. Horsehair is rarely used anymore, and pieces that have it are worth preserving. The horsehair adds what she calls “crunch.” Feather and down also can be excellent stuffing materials, but Karger points out that a down-filled shabby-chic-style sofa may be too soft for some.
Frame: Dimensions can be tweaked. Taller feet can build up a chair. A square arm can be made round. But remember, she said, if you’ve picked out a vintage piece because you love its lines, drastic changes are counterproductive.
Deal-breaker: It’s the broken frame. “That would have to be doweled and braced and wouldn’t be worth it,” she said. “It’s fixable, but expensive.”
Fabric: Karger doesn’t advise clients to buy their own fabric. “They don’t understand scale, repeats, and they can’t picture it done,” she said. She recommends enlisting the help of an upholsterer who understands textures and will know, for example, that loose-weave fabrics need to be backed with cotton.
Samples: Live with the fabric samples. “I like my clients to buy a yard and take it home with them,” Karger said. Indirect lighting in the home will be different from light in a showroom.
Sources: Estate sales and eBay are good places to look for vintage furniture. For Karger, a self-described scavenger, the fun is in the hunt. “There’s a great challenge in getting something that has a certain aesthetic and taking it and reconstructing it.”
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