A New Chair

I bought a new chair this week. There is nothing extraordinary about that statement. Hundreds if not thousands of Canadians could, on any given week, say the same thing. The number of furniture stores in Duncan alone attest to the fact that a lot of people spend a lot of money buying furniture. So why is the statement that I bought a new chair worthy of an opening line?

I realized as I got home and was assembling my new chair that I had never ever bought a new chair. I would not want anyone to think that I have been sitting on the floor all of this years. In fact considering that I live alone, I probably have too many chairs. I have an old wooden office chair with arms that sits in front of my desk, a modern wheeled office chair to use when weaving or spinning, two dining room chairs, a padded folding chair I use to sit on when spinning at the market, three or four bar stools and a director's chair with my name on it that I have in my bedroom so I have somewhere to throw my clothes.

For years my reading chair was a lovey old wooden chair well padded with cushions. We had bought the chair at an auction with money that was earned by my former wife selling her first painting. I used that chair for probably 20 years. We had built  the couch and the love seat in the living room. My first major attempt at sewing had been when I made the love seat for that room and done all of the upholstery. All of the pieces looked fine for the times and were functional. In hindsight however, none of the furniture was super comfortable. When I sold the farm house the chair went to auction and I think I just left the couches there. They were really too heavy to move and I could not imagine anyone wanting to buy them.

When I moved to a one room apartment to be closer to the university, I bought a queen size futon. It was the first piece of new furniture that I had ever bought. For the next eleven years that futon served as my bed during the first year or so and as my couch for the rest of the time. It was, in my various apartments, the only piece of furniture with padding. It was my work station for teasing out the washed wool, a storage place for spun wool and when I badly hurt my back a few years back, the only place that I could comfortable sit. It was lumpy, the burgundy cover was faded and slightly stained, it was heavy and expensive to move (long distance movers charge by the pound) and I was tired of it. I sold it before I moved.

When I arrived in Duncan, my original intent was to buy an over-sized, super well padded couch and chair. I wanted something comfortable enough that I could wake up from my late afternoon nap without feeling as if my back had been twisted in two. There were lots of chairs and couches available on the various used furniture sites. I looked at a number of them. Some were the wrong colour, others were not comfortable enough and others were just to damn heavy to imagine ever moving them anywhere. But the real problem was that the ones that I envisioned as owning were just too big. I didn't need a seven foot couch and that in combination with a proportionately sized chair  would dominate my living room leaving little or no room for anything else.

So instead I bought from a really nice guy who also delivered it, a small,  reasonably padded love seat. It is a bit lower to the ground that I would have liked and of course I can't stretch out on it but it is comfortable enough to read or watch television on and equally important it fits into the room. It looks as if it belongs there. The next day I drove to Nanaimo and after some comparison shopping, bought a brand new, from a store, modern looking, pseudo leather, semi reclining chair with an ottoman. Again not what I thought I wanted but rather something that would fit well into the room and be functional. I think it will be just fine for reading and if I get bored there....I can move to the love seat. Imagine having a choice where to sit!