New-to-Me Chairs

When our family was quite young, we scored a oak pedestal table for our kitchen through a newspaper ad. Unfortunately, it was just the table... so, we had no matching chairs.  When my parents purchased new kitchen chairs, they offered us their old ones -- and we finally had matching chairs!  In the 13-or-so years since then, the chairs (which have served us so well) have finally given up, and given in.  Only one of them remains.  Needless to say,  in the past several years, our kitchen chairs have been sadly mismatched.  Well, let me explain what I mean by that: one remaining (Hitchcock) chair, one wooden chair with a woven seat (purchased at Gold Circle thirty-some years ago), and two metal folding chairs.  So, we're not talking a "cute" mismatch, we're talking a SAD one.

When we planned to have my family (11 of us) here for Mother's Day lunch, and were down to about 3.5 good chairs, we realized that this was going to have to be a B.Y.O.C. party. Seriously.  Sad, sad, sad.  My family willingly toted their own chairs to the occasion.

Obviously, my dad knew we were "in a bad way," so when he learned that their local library was having a silent auction on some furniture, he sent me photos.

The wood: slightly lighter than the wood of our table.

Hmmmm, not what I was looking for exactly... and probably rickety and all used up (we already HAVE chairs like that!)... and probably not the correct height for use at the kitchen table.  Right?  I almost passed them up.  But then my dad used the word "sturdy" in his description, and at the last minute, the kids and I drove over to the library to see what was what.

Here's what:  about 15 of these chairs with a starting bid (silent auction) of $5.  When we arrived, there was no crowd, no buzz, no interest whatsoever.  We looked around and discovered that the chairs that were a possibility each had a bid of $5 on them.  The bidding went up in $1 increments.  So, I bid $6 on four chairs.  The floor-to-top-of-seat measurement looked good, afterall.  As I sat there and waited for the bidding to close, I wondered why I wasn't bidding on 6 chairs.  I mean, c'mon.  At $6 each.  Why not?  So, I bid on two more, and sat back down to wait.

The fabric: a small gray/tan geometric pattern.  Basically, neutral.

At 8:00PM, the silent bidding ended.  My dad and a sweet Indian couple showed up to await the outcome as well. And... we were all winners.

Okay - now THAT's my kind of auction!  No announcements.  Nothing loud and intimidating.  No worries about raising your hand at an inappropriate moment.  Not even an announcement over the library P.A. system.  Nothing.  Just quiet winnings.

Today, I am the proud owner of 6 new-to-me kitchen chairs.  (Let's just pretend they were always meant for the kitchen, shall we?)  There are knicks here and there.  Such is life.  I have a few upholstery spots that I need to work on.  Who doesn't?  Perhaps someday I'll recover them.  But for now, they are just the ticket.

What I'm excited about is that:
   * we have six matching chairs for our kitchen!
   * our entire family will be seated at the same height for dinner tonight!

p.s. They are so NOT "lilac!"

As an interesting side note... As we were loading them into our van, I noticed a tag on the bottom of each chair-seat.  After we got home, I ripped one off to check it out.  (Don't worry, I OWN these chairs now, the tag is mine to rip - LOL!)  These chairs were made by the Jasper Chair Co. Inc. of Jasper, Indiana.  Turns out that they have promised to build furniture to last a lifetime, using superior products (read: everything made under their roof since 1921, and no imported parts).  I did a little checking around on their site, and it looks like these chairs were somewhere in the $200-$300 range.  EACH. Let's call it $250.  Times 6 chairs = $1500.  But, I only paid $36. What a happy ending.

Thanks Dad!