Before & After: How I Restored Don Draper’s Patio Set

Written by

Monique Larroux
Monique Larroux
Nashville based photographer with an obsessive love of vintage. And broken things that need to be fixed.
published Apr 2, 2015
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(Image credit: Monique Larroux)

I own Don Draper’s patio set! I didn’t know it at first. It was just a rusty little table and chairs at the Nashville Flea Market. One of the chairs was missing some scrolls and the top was gone, but I fell in love. $100 later I was loading it into my neighbor’s truck.

(Image credit: Monique Larroux)

Lucky for me, there’s a powder coater near the flea market and I brought it straight to him. He had another company recreate the missing scrolls and weld them in place. Then he powder coated it a nice satin white. I had a local glass company make the top and voila! A fabulous patio set was born.

Along comes season 5 of Mad Men and the piercing screech of a woman who has discovered she has the same patio set as Don Draper. During the next commercial I ran outside to verify, and (squee!) it was. I have since found out that the set is by Arthur Umanoff for Shaver Howard in the ’60s. What fun it is to discover a diamond in the rough!

(Image credit: AMC)