Exquisite Equipale

Our house is shaped like the letter H with a covered porch spanning the two rear “arms” in back. While we could bring our indoor furniture with us when we moved, we didn’t have any outdoor furniture for the porch. As we talked about what we might like I proposed the idea of equipale furniture. As we have both wild hogs and cedar trees in the Texas Hill Country, I thought it would be meaningful to have furniture hand crafted in Mexico and made of pigskin and cedar wood.

My husband needed little convincing as to the look and comfort of equipale furniture. Both of us had great memories of sitting with my Grandpa on the porch of his home in Ajijic, Mexico. The porch was tiled with Saltillo tile and mopped daily; probably to keep away the scorpions. The equipale furniture had a pungent leather smell and creaked softly when my Grandpa sat down or reached for his lime and tonic. I remember listening to him talk for hours and learning about his life and loves. Every day when we were at home we had a lunch of hard-boiled egg squirted with lime juice, Vienna sausage, and Waverly crackers. We often got up before dawn and went walking with Grandpa and his Great Dane, Chica, in the mountains surrounding the town. We passed hand-built stone walls enclosing pens for gigantic spotted hogs and followed a stream to the peak. Grandpa told us not to sit down or our muscles would stiffen up. When we got home we were more than ready to sit out on the porch, playing cards and talking together.

It’s important to know you must take care of equipale. In order to keep the leather clean and supple I treat it with saddle soap once a month.

I had never used saddle soap before, but I read the directions and dampened a cloth and wiped it on as specified. This is horse country and I liked the idea that the soap I was using was the same one people used on their saddles and bridles. Before using the saddle soap, I wipe everything off with a cloth wet with water and a drop of Ivory soap. This is actually a labor of love and seems to protect the furniture quite well. We also cover the furniture with plastic tarps strung with parachute string when it is going to rain. This year it has only rained a couple of times since March, so it doesn’t happen often. We had to work to find the appropriate tarps. When we first came here we used drop cloths. In the winter of 2021 we had the worst freeze anyone could remember and the tarp blew off the big equipale table and chairs. I couldn’t go out on the porch to drag them inside as the porch was covered in a sheet of ice. When the ice thawed enough for us to get to the furniture, I spread drop cloths on the tile floor in the house and brought the furniture inside to thaw. I had to use warm cloths to melt the sheet of ice off the surface of the furniture. The ice was so thick on the table, I had to break it in pieces and carry it out in buckets. I watched the equipale dry with great trepidation and was elated to see it was as good as new; I believe it survived because of all the saddle soap treatments!

My husband and I wanted to emulate my Grandfather’s porch and give it our own twist. Our porch is fairly long so we have room to include some areas for curling up to read books or electronic devices, or writing in our journals…

 and others for eating or working at the table…

Early in the day we open the doors to the porch and let the breezes in the canyons flow through the house. We keep the iron doors open with sandbags I made using some canvas we had around for other projects.  I filled zip loc bags with sand, inserted them in the canvas case like a pillowcase, folded the top over and stitched it, leaving enough room to insert a cedar stick to make it easier to carry the bags. Jerry taught me how to use a knife and shave the bark off the cedar until it was as smooth as fine, polished wood. There are always cedar branches and sticks on the ground when you need them.

We keep a basket of these canvas sandbags in the back hallway.

In the mornings when we come back from a slow jog we fix a breakfast bowl of plain yogurt, homemade granola and fresh fruit and sit out on the porch eating and talking about our plan for the day.

We have an old cherry wood bowl on the table filled with fossils, geodes, crystals, and rocks, found on the land. It makes a beautiful centerpiece and it’s exciting to think we live on land that was once deep in the ocean even though we are now deep in the heart of Central Texas.

We have an 18^th century Belgian finial at one end of the porch. My husband says he is NEVER going to move it again. Believe it or not, I ordered it from Chairish.com before we moved, thinking I would put it out in the garden. When the finial arrived, it came complete with Dijon mustard colored moss on it and I loved it so much I couldn’t bear to think of it getting wet. It’s turned out great having the finial here as I can see it from inside and out, it never gets wet, and the moss seems to live on!

Here is a photograph of a ram’s head pot we have had forever. I got it in a place called Garden Ridge Pottery about 20 years ago and it now looks like an ancient artifact. I put it on some leftover pieces of stone and filled it with succulents and agave pups from the land. Sometimes the things you have had for years take on a new look when you put them somewhere they haven’t been before!

We return to the porch and the equipale throughout the day and sometimes bring what we want to read or work on out to the porch. Even when it’s hot outside as it is in the summer months here in the Texas Hill Country, we are pretty cool on the porch. In the chilly months, we light the fireplace and have dinner outside at the equipale table. Afterwards we put our feet on the hearth and watch the flames until late at night. The first time we did this the bottoms of my slippers came loose from the heat of the fire. I have learned to wear tougher shoes! There is something about the smell of the native plants in the courtyard below, the creak of the equipale and the whisper of the wind that draws you here to the porch for part of each and every day!