There's a difference, it appears, between buying furniture, and admiring furniture; one that goes beyond the the fact that the former may involve considerable expense and the latter need not. Being one of those people who loves looking at furniture, and who can spend hours drooling over a chair or a table, it came as something of a surprise to me that being crazy about design in no way qualifies one to buy furniture. Thankfully, I am not thinking of buying any – should I ever have to furnish anything, I’m quite sure I would first want to have some form of basic knowledge of carpentry, and of jargon used by shopkeepers (in Delhi).
Going into workshops, it seems clear that it doesn't take much to convert a piece of insect-eaten wood into a piece of furniture which looks like it's made of good wood to an untrained eye. Teak is rarely teak. Assam teak seems to be some form of plywood. Particle board is what furniture in many of the fancier shops is made of. And furniture in my favourite haunts (including flea markets) may cause even the perfectly healthy to develop asthama.
Somehow, that has not even marginally deterred me from spending time around furniture; I tell myself that it doesn’t matter that I know nothing about wood — after all, I’m there to enjoy design, not to check quality.
What somehow bothers me though is that many contemporary-classic pieces — perhaps they’re called “neo-classical” — look supremely icky to me. I can’t, for example, stand brand new knobs on what’s clearly a piece inspired by furniture from the 1930s, and much prefer pieces from tiny shops than large chains which all sell the same genuine-looking piece.
At this point, I’m reminded of an episode from “Friends” where Rachel stocked the home she shared with Phoebe with pseudo-antiques. As long as Pheobe didn’t know, she loved the pieces. When she found out, she hated the idea of mass-manufactured “antiques” – that, though, was before she got addicted to buying pseudo-antiques.
It's possible that I'll ultimately go down the same road. For now though, I refuse to move away from flea markets. After all, I'm perfectly poised to "enjoy design" without having to worry about fleas.
