Recovering a Classic

	The Chair, Before

I may still be a fool, but my money and I are not soon parted. Throw in the complementary but not always copacetic taste of my wife, Lorraine, and it took us more than a year to agree upon a living room chair. (Don't even ask about the lack of a floor lamp -- that's an ongoing 18-month debate.)

We found the winner in the deepest basement recesses of Horseman Antiques, a four-floor, overstuffed shop anchoring the Antiques Row section of Brooklyn, N.Y.'s Atlantic Avenue.

Another chair sat upside-down atop it, like a kid doing a headstand. I removed it, and was delighted to find that what looked like a simple seat was instead a rocker.

Throw in cool orange fabric and Danish modern styling that we both dug, and, well, I called over a salesman to haggle.

It didn't last long. "The Scandinavian stuff is going like crazy," he said. "And they made such great oranges back then." Confirming our good judgment alone would have sealed the deal, but when he dropped the price from $325 to $285, my alligator arms stretched all the way to my wallet.

Even in the murky light we could tell that the chair needed a stern cleaning, and its foam padding had lost some firmness. (After 40 years, what hasn't?) ...