Random 5 for February 5, 2023 – Youth, furniture, family businesses, weather, spring

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Are they making them younger? – I had a whole-body dermatology checkup this week. I opted for a physician’s assistant so I could get in faster. I swear she looked like she was in junior high school. PA’s do a lot of schooling so at a minimum she had to be in her upper 20s.  I wonder if the old folks said that about me when I was that young.

Furniture decisions – We purchased some furniture but are deciding whether we want to reupholster a few pieces we have or buy new. I called my upholsterer for ballpark costs. This is a family run business I have used for decades. They are out in the country, living off the land. Like hippies. Their website was still up so I called. It was after 10 a.m. and it seemed like I woke someone up. It was the woman I had dealt with before. I asked if she could give me a cost. Her exact answer was, “I could but I’m too tired!” How do you respond to that? It turns out that they only do cushions these days. Even hippies retire.

Speaking of upholstering – That is a dying profession. Most people prefer to buy new and discard the old. Some of the new stuff isn’t as well made. If I have a comfortable piece that is well made and not flakeboard stapled together, I always consider reusing. It’s not cheaper or faster. Many workshops are family run with both parents involved. The kids are not interested, preferring to create video games to matching patterns. This is the second one that I’ve lost to retirement with no one in the family interested in taking over.

Weather – Continuing our bi-polar weather cycle, we had a polar cold front with record lows this past week. This coming week we will bounce around the mid-50s. Clearly Mother Nature needs meds.

Groundhog day – Our rodent saw his shadow (so they say) so it’s six more weeks of winter (hmmpf!). On the other hand, donut day (Shroud Tuesday before Lent) is two weeks off. Spring can’t be far behind!

So how was your week?

52 thoughts on “Random 5 for February 5, 2023 – Youth, furniture, family businesses, weather, spring”

  1. The weather is downright wacky. We had winds fierce enough to whisk Dorothy and Toto off. Our Woody the Woodchuck, the female groundhog I mentioned that has a better record than Phil, has been right this week. It felt like a Spring day, rain and all!

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  4. I recently visited a new dermatologist and a new primary physician. Both are female, and I’m quite sure younger than my daughter. It is a little bit of a shock, but I’ve learned to appreciate the fact that younger doctors are up on the latest research. Now about your upholsterer. Her response is the funniest thing I’ve heard from a business owner in quite some time. One thing’s for sure, she may be tired, but she must not be hungry!

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    • The upholsterer always was a hoot. A real hippie from the 70s (also a dying breed!). A really great eye doc I had was in his 20s when he started with the practice I was using then. He lasted about 5 years and then moved on to bigger things. One day he will find new ways to treat eye issues.

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  5. Spring should arrive in about 6 weeks (even if Phil had seen his shadow). Don’t have a problem with the timing, just hoping the wind goes on vacay. Permanently. 40 years ago I was gifted some fabulous chairs but always hated the covering. Eventually found an upholstery shop in my neighborhood and he transferred them into absolute beauties. Just saw where his shop closed which made me very sad. He was a true artisan and I hope he’s enjoying a relaxing and peaceful retirement. Good luck with your furniture hunt. I don’t envy you-it’s exhausting work.

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  8. We have a new US congresswoman in WA, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. She and her husband own a small auto repair shop, so she’s a grassroots, ordinary person. One of her pet issues is being able to fix things without being locked out by the manufacturers. It seems only reasonable to me. Instead of throwing everything away and getting something new, we should be able to repair things like upholstery, but it’s getting harder and harder to find anyone who does it.

    Someone pointed out that Groundhog Day should be about a month later. You can’t expect spring to start in early February–although my daffodils are already 6 or 8 inches above ground.

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    • I agree with groundhog day. They pull the poor rodent out of it’s cozy cave to a flash of lights and crowds of roaring people. They are lucky he doesn’t poop on them! Small auto repair shops are not big here. There is so much specialty equipment needed that’s it’s not cost effective (or so I was told). A lot of the “repair” professions (tailor, shoemaker, reupholsterer) are going the way of the dinosaur. I don’t know if kids are not interested or there isn’t a clientele to support them.

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    • I probably could but I don’t want to. Fabric is unforgiving. Cut it wrong and you are in deep doodoo. The fabric is very expensive so I wouldn’t try. I’ve done cushions on furniture that is a wooden frame and put new seats on dining room chairs. This job would be big. I would more likely do a slip cover for it but it would take a special kind of fabric and not what I’m looking at.

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  11. Oh my gosh – yes the doctors (and dentists and so on) and way too young these days! Sorry to hear that your upholsterers have retired! That is a real shame, because I agree most newer furniture is not well made at all. Better to refresh older pieces.

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  13. Good luck on find someone to do upholstery. I have been trying to find someone to repair and upholster my grandfather’s chair. I upholstered it years ago with fabric but don’t want to take that on again as I want leather this time. Like shoe repair, ti seems to be a dying industry. I hope your dermatology check by the kid went well.

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    • I can’t remember the last time I had shoes repaired but I always shorten the shoulder strap on my purses. I found a guy. He’s very quirky. He told me that there are some guys who wear high end Italian shoes and they get them resoled periodically. I can’t imagine that’s enough to live on but he seems to be doing fine.

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  14. I have a great dermatology practice about ten minutes from my house – same building where my primary care doc is. The techs who do the body checks are really good and I’ve had three biopsies – one a bigger deal than the others – having had melanoma and recurrent melanoma I know how important the body checks are. I go every 6 months. As for upholstering – we are INCREDIBLY fortunate to have a place that does it – they also made our draperies for us, I ordered area rugs through them AND the custom made wood blinds in the master bath. It’s a family run business and has been around for years.

    Hugs, Pam

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    • You are one lucky person. I have to find a new place if I decide to go that route. The derm place I go to has a lot of docs and it’s a very busy practice. My doc retired at the end of the year so I was booked for a PA I had gone to before. On the day of my appointment (at 8 a.m.!) she called out sick. If I wanted to reschedule with her, it would have been in April so I tried this new one. She’s pleasant enough and I swear she looked at every inch of my body through her magnifying glass.

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    • I have mostly seen PAs because they are easier to get into and I think they do a great job. The skin cancer was found by a PA. I think they take more time. This was a new one (at least to me). Most of them are in their 30s-40s but this one was sure young!

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  17. Yup, they definitely are making them younger. A couple years back, I was given an appointment with a dermatologist in our area (and by “in our area” I mean an hour+ drive away). I waited several months for the appointment. When I arrived, the dermologist (not even the PA) truly looked like she was in Middle School.(I was a MS Principal so I am not exaggerating here). I kept trying to do the math but my brain went blank. After all that, the appointment was not very helpful (I seriously could have Googled the advice she gave me). But it was a lovely drive!
    Hope your appointment was much better!

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  18. I have never had an inclination for sewing, much less upholstering, but my SIL upholstered a well-built sofa my parents had given them, and she said it wasn’t difficult, just time consuming (she’s a perfectionist, so I suspect she had to rip out and redo if even one single stitch wasn’t perfect!). With your talent for making draperies, have you looked at any YouTube videos to see how difficult it is to reupholster a piece? And I agree that Mother Nature needs meds to stop her inability to make up her mind about our weather here!

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    • I have made slipcovers for sofas and no, thank you. It is detail oriented and not forgiving of a wrong dimension. I have made cushions with piping and covered cornices. My days of fine details are waning. I have enough trouble threading a needle!

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  19. Speaking of upholstering… yes please do. I have a loveseat with a good frame that I’d like to have reupholstered but there is no one who does that anymore. So I’ve been looking online for a new one, and they’re lovely, but not so well made. In a world obsessed with me reusing my shopping bags, there’s no one to help me reuse my loveseat? Makes no sense.

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    • My hippie upholster gave me two names but both are an hour away. There are two locally. One is within a mile so I may investigate that one. My husband got rid of his minivan so we would have to have it picked up and delivered. Any distance would jack up the price considerably!

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  20. My mom (a stellar seamstress) taught herself how to reupholster a chair that my dad refinished first in his shop. I’ve refinished furniture, but reupholstery is beyond my ken.

    Maybe you could find someone who does it as a hobby?

    Good Luck!

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    • A hobby? Surely you jest? It’s a complicated, time-consuming project especially if the fabric has a pattern. There are two in the area to inquire about. We’ll see low my patience wears. Refinishing furniture is easy in comparison. I’ve done quite a bit of that.

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  21. My latest primary care physician is an Asian American doctor looks like she’s twelve. But she’s way better than the older Russian woman who used to tell me to basically, “Suck it up, our mothers had it worse and didn’t complain.”

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  22. I’ve had chairs upholstered and re-caned. I stripped and then repainted and re-stained my old bed for my kid. You are so right about keeping old furnishings if you can–furniture before the 1970s is generally more solid than what has been mass produced in that last few decades (unless you bought expensive, custom-made furnishings). My last upholstery guy was pretty darn old, too.

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  23. So much in our society is geared toward cheap products that get tossed and replaced instead of stuff that lasts. We have a furnace that is at least 30 years old and still going strong. We know that won’t last forever, but it shows how well things were made in days gone by.

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