The Sweet Smell of Success

QUESTION: My grandmother has what she calls a “Larkin” desk. It doesn’t look like a normal desk but more like a tall oak bookshelf with a drop-down writing surface. She remembers her parents acquiring it around 1911.  Can you tell me more about it?

ANSWER: One of the most popular items from the Larkin Company was the drop-front combination bookcase/desk, also known as the Chautauqua desk. This desk became a common piece in homes at the beginning of the 20th Century.

In 1875, John D. Larkin opened a soap factory in Buffalo, New York, where he made two products— a yellow laundry soap he marketed as Sweet Home Soap and a toilet soap he called Crème Oatmeal. He sold both products using wholesalers and retailers. Larking originally sold his Sweet Home Soap to street vendors, who in turn sold it to customers along their routes. By 1878, he had expanded his product line to nine types of soap products.

His brother-in-law, Elbert Hubbard, the eventual founder of the Roycroft Arts and Crafts Community, came up with what he called "The Larkin Idea"—door-to-door sales to private residences. To establish brand identity, Hubbard, inserted a color picture with the company's logo into every box of soap as an incentive for customers to buy more soap. Housewives accumulated and traded these picture cards, and eventually the cards became more elaborate. This concept of offering a gift directly to customers was a new approach to marketing. And by the 1890's, Larkin’s premiums had become an overwhelming success and a vital part of the company’s   marketing plan.

The premiums Larkin offered included handkerchiefs with toilet soap, towels with soap powder, or one-cent coins. Eventually, Larkin inserted certificates into the packaged products which could be redeemed by mail at the company’s Buffalo headquarters. A $10 order of soap resulted in the awarding of a premium with a retail value of the same $10. By 1891 he placed his first wholesale order of items to be given as premiums, $40,000 worth of piano lamps. The next year he acquired 80,000 Morris chairs and 100,000 oak dining chairs—all to be given away with the purchase of soap.

Larkin and Hubbard knew the key to mass merchandising was to eliminate the sales force and sell directly to the consumer via direct-mail catalog. Larkin realized he would be better off if he made not only the products he sold, but also the premiums he distributed. His pitch was that since he manufactured the products he sold, unlike Sears & Roebuck and Montgomery Ward and sold them directly to the consumer, he was eliminating the "middleman" and giving the customer better value for the money. The Larkin Company motto became "Factory to Family." By the end of the 19th century, catalogs jammed people’s mailboxes.

The plan worked. Both his product line and his premium line expanded. By 1893, the Larkin Soap Manufacturing Company was sending semiannual catalogs to 1.5 million customers.

His first venture was the furniture assembly plant in Buffalo that made furniture from parts cut and milled in Tennessee. Here for the first time was a major catalog distributor who actually made the furniture they shipped. Furniture was one of the company’s primary premiums. Since Larkin was appealing to the mass market, he made sure to offer furniture premiums that appealed to ordinary people and not the wealthy.

His most famous premium was his oak drop-front desk with open bottom storage, first appearing in the 1901 catalog, that the company gave as a premium for a $10 purchase of soap. Constructed of either cold or quarter sewn oak plank, assembled with nail and glue construction, with a golden finish, each desk featured applied ash or maple molding and trim and back panels of three-layer plywood. Better desks also had stamped-brass escutcheons and brass hinges on the drop panel. Cheaper ones had iron-butt hinges. A somewhat oval French beveled mirror finished off each piece. Variations included a glass front case with a drop-front desk attached to the side, two glass front cases with a desk in the middle, or simply a drop-front desk with a small open bookcase below the drop and candle stands above it, with a mirror in the high splashboard. This small desk reflected the taste and style of the Golden Oak period of American furniture in a form modest enough fit into any middle-class home.

This type of desk became "Everyman's" desk and was a common item in most homes of the period. It became a trendy decorating item and remained so for many years. People began to associate Larkin's name to the form, even though his wasn’t the only company to manufacture them, and so evolved what has become known as the "Larkin Desk." Today, Larkin desks sell on eBay for around $400 and sometimes higher.

John Larkin and Elbert Hubbard not only provided the means for a growing American population to stay clean at a reasonable cost, but they also helped them furnish their homes for free.

Charles Eastlake—America’s Harbinger of Taste

QUESTION: I have a three-piece set of furniture that belonged to my grandparents and perhaps to their parents, and I'm trying to identify what it is. Can you tell me if you think it might be Eastlake and if so, what can you tell me about this furniture style?

ANSWER: What you have is an Eastlake parlor set, dating from around 1880. But it wasn’t designed by Charles Locke Eastlake. Instead, he only suggested designs in his book Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery and Other Details. More than any other person, he was responsible for introducing the principles of the English design reform movement to America.

Eastlake considered simplicity the key to beauty. He thought the objects in people's homes should be attractive and well made by workers who took pride in their hand work or machine work. His influence led to a broad demand for relatively simple, clean-lined "art furniture" between 1870 and 1890.

Written to instruct the average housewife in the principles of tasteful home decoration, Eastlake’s book achieved immediate popularity. Though Eastlake included some of his own sketches among the illustrations of well-designed furniture chosen for his book, he was primarily a critic of taste, not a furniture designer. The furniture illustrated in it had ornamental features including shallow carving, marquetry, incised or pierced geometric designs, rows of turned spindles, chamfered edges, brass strap hinges, bail handles, and keyhole hardware inspired by Gothic forms. Every decorative device, according to Eastlake, also had to fulfill a useful function.

He especially disdained the "shaped" forms of Rococo Revival. He considered the curved forms of this Victorian style rickety and constructively weak. To relieve the simplicity of rectilinear forms, Eastlake advised using turned legs or spindle supports.

For those who wished more richness in their furniture, he suggested restrained, conventionalized carving, inlay, and sometimes even veneer. Eastlake believed ornament should be stylized rather than naturalistic.

His book further suggested that furniture be made of solid, strongly grained woods such as mahogany, walnut, or oak. Most Eastlake-style furniture found today is usually made of the latter.He preferred oil-rubbed finishes to "French-polished" ones, and disliked the shiny look of varnish.

To the modern eye, Eastlake-style furniture, with its intricate marquetry, gilded incised designs, spindled galleries, inset tiles, richly grained woods, and decorative turned elements, hardly seems “simple.” But in contrast to the heavily carved furniture of earlier Victorian decades, embellished with naturalistic roses and bunches of grapes imposed on the elaborate Rococo shapes now regarded as the embodiment of Victorian design, Eastlake-inspired furniture was remarkably functional and clean-lined.

Eastlake-style furniture often featured tables and chests with marble tops, some the traditional white, others in rich Italian pinks and browns. Tables and chairs had aprons and legs incised with horizontal or vertical lines called reeding and camfered corners. Round legs on chairs also featured ring-like annulets. And acanthus leaf designs could be found incised into even the least expensive pieces.

Unfortunately, while Eastlake-style furniture may have looked refined, most chairs and sofas weren’t very comfortable and were meant to be used in formal parlors for guests only.

Basic Refinishing 101

QUESTION: I have a 1930's silky oak drop-door desk that has been in our shed for about 20 years. It has seen a few cyclones and had a lot of weathering and the doors are off and knobs missing. This desk holds special memories for me as a young child watching my dad working at it. I’d like to refinish it but have no idea where to begin. How hard would it be for a beginner like me to refinish it?

ANSWER: Your desk sounds like the ideal piece of furniture on which to learn about refinishing furniture. For many beginners, refinishing seems easy, but it’s far from it. First you need to decide if the piece needs to be completely refinished or the original finish preserved. Your desk seems like it may fall somewhere in between.

It’s only been within the last 20 years or so that refinishing products have appeared that make the job less intimidating. However, most people think you have to strip off all the old finish before applying a new one. That all depends on the condition of the piece.

Your piece appears to have been through some tough times. Before you do anything, you need to evaluate it. Has the finish been mostly removed by weathering or is it spotty? If it’s the former, then you’ll need to sand it following the grain of the wood with fine to medium grade sandpaper. If it’s the latter, you may be able to just clean it up and apply a new coat of varnish. With refinishing, a little effort goes a long way. The nearer you can keep your desk to its original condition, the better.

Let’s assume the worst. If the finish has mostly been removed by weathering, you’ll need to remove what remains with a good varnish remover. Be sure to buy one that’s water soluble. Even though this takes longer to achieve the results you want, the fumes are mild and cleanup is easy. When using a remover, always brush it on with the grain of the wood. Do a little section at a time, turning the piece on end if necessary to make it easier to apply the remover. Scrap it off with a putty knife, and be sure to have a roll of paper towels handy to wipe up the excess and stripped varnish or paint.

After you’ve completely stripped your desk of its finish, lightly sand it with fine sandpaper. Wrap the sandpaper around a wooden block for support and sand with the wood grain. Be careful not to over sand---just enough to smooth the surface. After you’re finished sanding, wipe the desk with a damp cloth to remove all the dust. Do not get the wood wet.

Once you have prepared your desk for its new finish, let it rest for a day to make sure the surface is thoroughly dry. Dust it off with a dry cloth to make sure it’s clean, then begin to rub on a new furniture finish of tung or Chinese oil using a piece of white tube sock or other soft cotton material going with the grain of the wood. Several manufacturers make this, including Formbys, and you should be able to buy it at your local hardware or home center. The first coat will soak into the newly stripped wood. Let it dry 24 hours, then sand lightly with fine sandpaper. Dust it with a damp cloth again and let dry. Apply a second coat of the tung oil and repeat the process, except this time rub it with 0000 steel wool after it dries. Dust off again and apply a third and final coat of tung oil, but don’t rub with the steel wool this time.

The advantage to using tung oil is its rapid drying capability. Though it will feel dry to the touch in an hour or so, be sure to let it thoroughly dry for 24 hours. And don’t apply it on a humid or rainy day. And here's a tip: Wrap your application cloth in plastic wrap or put it into a Zip-Loc sandwich bag and place it in your freezer. Take it out 30 minutes before you're ready to apply another coat, and it will be ready for you.

Be sure to tune in next week to learn about preserving the finish of a piece of furniture that isn’t in such bad shape.