I finished renewing the chair this morning. Once it was bare bones
and ready to be rebuilt, it was hard to leave it alone. So it has been steadily
coming together. This morning I awakened at 5 am with an idea for my next Notes
From Toad Hall. I know from experience that ideas fly right out my nighttime
window if I don’t write them down immediately, after that I couldn’t go back to
sleep. I could hear the chair whispering down in the dining room where my
upholstering mess was festering away. I only had a little bit more to do, so
armed with a cup of tea and still in my pajamas, I began padding the back of
the back and attaching the back piece onto the chair back, thinking I’d be done
in no time. When the project is finished, all the inside work should be
invisible with none of your tacks or staples showing. There are some tricks to
this and my mother has been coaching me over the phone.
 |
| Chair back |
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| Happy Chair |
By 11:45 I was finally
done. I guess most meaningful things, including people and God, require more
bits of flesh than I plan to give. I hammered my thumb twice and nicked my
wrist once with the fabric cutter.
It’s been worth some cussing and pain. Inspiration for this
project came from Shawna Robinson’s website. She refashions old chairs with
complete disregard for convention or color and calls them Happy Chairs. She is
more than a designer: in a delightful twist of calling and giftedness, she’s also
NASCAR race driver. I couldn’t be happier with my Happy Chair. It punches up
our living room. Not to everyone’s taste. Denis sent a pic of it to a friend
last night who diplomatically replied: “Well, that’s different.” Which is the same thing as saying I’d rather
have a dead chicken hanging around my neck. That same person’s daughter said: I
would TOTALLY, immediately buy that if I saw it in a store.
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