All right, you know what did trigger anemoia (nostalgia for something you did not experience)? This Ethan Allen catalog/look book which I bought at the Senior Center in July. I was not clear when I bought it whether it was something for collectors or a catalog, but it’s definitely a catalog. It has some bits about how great Ethan Allen stores are and how great the quality of the furniture (solid oak and select veneers, so….). The stores not only handled furniture and accents/accessories but also window treatments and floor coverings/carpets so it was a one-stop shop for when you were decorating, as it had experts on hand to help you design and decorate a room or a home from scratch.
The catalog is grouped into the different collections, from olden opulent styles like the Georgian Court to a more modern look called Heirloom which looked to be a little less expensive (and Antiqued Pine which was probably the most, erm, economical). I rather enjoyed the more elaborate styles, of course, but would have been most likely to have seen the lower end things. If I ever saw any Ethan Allen furniture in the wild, it would most likely have been those latter things. Our homes would have been decorated in garage sale chic and later inherited antiques. Heck, even my rich aunt and uncle were only aspirants to upper middle class in my youth. Maybe they later would have gotten some Ethan Allen things. I see the chain is still in business, and there’s a location in the Mid Rivers Mall area near where they lived after St. Charles.
But: The thing that really stirred my interest and nostalgia was the patterns and the colors on the walls. Wallpapers, not paneling, and oversized window treatments. Floral print upholstery. Which is not what we’ve had much of in our three homes and certainly not in Old Trees or Nogglestead. We’ve had homes where the only window treatments were blinds–at Nogglestead, the living room, parlor, dining room, hall baths, and both offices still have the blinds we inherited from the previous owners fifteen years ago–and as the ones in the parlor, dining room, and living room are paper and have been subject recently to kittens chewing the cords, they’re falling into disrepair. And the walls in both the home in Old Trees and at Nogglestead have, for the most part, remained an off-white or beige color–the neutrals that are designed to help sell a home. I mean, we have painted a couple of rooms a different color or added an accent wall, but the only texture we’ve had on the walls (aside from the knock-down cover-the-wall-defects-without-sanding treatment which is then painted all one color) is the rag-rolled blues in my office at Casinoport. And aside from a couch which my then-beautiful-girlfriend bought as she was moving to St. Louis, most of our furniture has been of a single color or solid. Heck, even our throw pillows have been mostly a single color (accoutrements with Green Bay Packers logos excepted, of course). Boring!
At Nogglestead, we’ve accumulated keepsakes and personal relics to build a layered look on mantels and whatnot, and the books jammed into their bookshelves provide a texture of sorts, but I’m wondering if a wallpaper or paneling might not make the lower level of Nogglestead more to my taste. Probably! Although my wife does not like the look of wallpaper. And have you noticed the talk of decorating has lead me to overusing exclamation points? Well, it has! As I am getting older, I am starting to really dial into the look of a home I want–but we’re not in a position to make our vision come to life–partially financially, but also partially because the “we” and “our” differs and defers to the taste of the Mrs. And to the taste of the previous Nogglestead owners.
At any rate, I read the text introducing each section of the catalog, the descriptions of the various rooms and the very palely purple prose praising the collections (but I did not read the details of each particular item found in the rooms or in groups of furniture types such as end tables or occasional tables). Forty-five years ago (probably forty-six), someone made a living writing copy for catalogs (I’ve known a few people who did that while working on their literary works–::cough cough:: Leah Holbrook). I felt a little bad for someone like that whose work was generally transient. So I read this unnamed author’s works.
I also flagged a couple of things:
- In a section on kitchens, the catalog also includes serving lists and recipes, and one such for a Heirloom collection dining room with an Italian theme included mentions of a La Caprese. A Caprese salad. I’ve recently started buying fresh mozzarella, and my beautiful wife has made Caprese salads for me with store-boughten tomatoes but homegrown basil because I’ve ordered them when I can at Italian and upscale restaurants around town.
- A blue-themed Heirloom collection had Matisse prints on the wall above the headboard, including the one on the cover of the book I read in 2018 (that long ago?). It hasn’t been that long since I’ve seen this particular print though–it was in an episode< of The Streets of San Francisco which I just watched.
Also, I looked at the back, which had a stamp of the local Ethan Allen gallery:
I had to look up the actual location to see if I could place it, and I most assuredly can: It was located in the building that now houses the Ozark Treasures antique mall. I asked my wife if she knew where it was, and she did; apparently, the store remained open until after she moved to the Springfield area, although that was less than a decade after this catalog came out. It’s unclear from the Internet when it actually closed; in 1998, it moved from this location to a former movie theatre in the mall which by 2017 was a large thrift store which closed a couple years later. I don’t remember if it was in the mall when my toddlers and I wandered through it when our car was getting serviced in a service center in the out lot, but I am not sure. So it’s possible I might have passed by such a store and never stopped in. But, to be honest, I have enough furniture with select veneers that a couple years of children and kittens have begun to peel.
The next dilemma: Do I enter this catalog into the book database I have? I mean, I have counted it as a book I read this year (currently at 69, but I am not stopping for the puerile humor of the total). But I have not counted the Ideals magazines I have read nor have I entered them into the book database (but the hardback Ideals book Houses of Worship? You bet!). So what to do? What to do? Since I am likely to crack the 25-year-old database program open and wait through its overtaxed type-ahead feature for books I have yet to review, maybe so!