this chair

Have I told you the story about this chair? No, I don't think I have.

For a little while now, I've been looking for the perfect chair to go with the perfect fabric that I want to buy for a cushion. I've been looking.

For over a year.


I have some very specific ideas in mind about what I want, but am also strangely flexible. Color doesn't matter ~ I know how to work the paint afterall. It had to be perfect. I did find one such perfect chair at a discount place. The style was spot on. It was red. It would have been great to paint black & distress so the red peeked through. It was also tagged on the seat. Punks! So I took it to the register to barter with them (which is totally out of character for me). They wanted $50. I was willing to pay $20 since it was brand new and all. But sheesh, it'd be a lot of work to repaint over that tagged area. Not! I tried to work the pitiful angle. Apparently it didn't work because they were willing to sell it to me for $40. I walked out of the store without the spunky red chair, but with a tiny lump in my throat instead.


Charlotte called me one morning before school to tell me she saw a perfect chair for me on the side of the road. She told me where to find it. I embarked on the impossible, trying to hustle the getting ready process so I could go snag a chair before work.

Several minutes later she called & breathlessly told me that she got one for me. Later, she told me about how she felt like a common criminal, looking this way and that to make sure no one saw her taking the chair from off the curb, even though it was intended for the trash.


The chair was a lovely specimen. She had a striking silhouette that had once been painted a soft shade of aqua. She had obviously spent some hard time outside and would need a lot of love and care. Even in her chipped up state she was a beauty queen. Right now, she was rough and rickety. Some new screws, some sanding, some paint ~ oh, she'd be as good as new in an oldish sort of way.

She spent the summer on my front porch. As with any big project, I didn't start right away. I can't start right away. I have sit and stew on the idea for an eternity. I have to work it all out in my head before my hands can get to work. Every time I walked in the front door I looked her way and thought of the possibility of what she could become.

Finally one day I went out to really survey the damage I had only glanced at before for fear of getting entirely intimidated. That's when I realized that her day was truly over. She was much too much work for me. All those curves? With sandpaper? I was less than confident.

So I reluctantly set her out on the curb again. I was so hesitant to give her up. She really was beautiful. My dear friend Charlotte stooped to thievery and risked spending time in the clinker rapping her tin can on the cell bars (or so she felt) because this chair was something she knew I would love. But I knew the time had come. I had to let her go.

What would be her fate this time?


Hopefully soon I will have a story to tell you of the two chairs who came home with me today.