I’ve been mustering up the courage to begin disassembling the cabinets in the kitchen after Friday’s announcement, but I’m not quite there yet. Soon. In the meantime, my mom surprised me by showing up with a new-old set of chairs (that I knew were stored in my parent’s basement, and that I special-requested, so no, I lied, it wasn’t really a surprise).
The set of four chairs were, uh, borrowed, from what I can only presume were rental companies and VFWs and senior events by my grandparents over the last several decades; my parents themselves only happened upon them after needing extra seating at family parties, and voila, suddenly they had themselves a dozen mismatched wooden folding stolen chairs. And now some of them are mine. A little piece of me even likes that they’re a, um, family heirloom. A way for me to remember my grandparents (and their sneaky ways). Meet the Memorial Chairs.
Moving a big round table into the sunroom immediately changed our work habits; we found that most mornings and late afternoons, the sunroom is a nice little greenhouse to get work done in. We liked it a lot, but we were lacking seating. Our easy solution to date had been dragging the IKEA chairs that surround the dining room table in and out for convenience.
The initial plan was to move the IKEA chairs into the sunroom permanently. Maybe give them a fresh coat of paint, make them all cozy and at home, and then find something fun and new to surround the dining room table… the wooden folding chairs were thought to be a perfect fit for the dining room.
That plan was all well and good until the chairs actually arrived, and as you can see in this next picture, were a little shorter than I remembered the chairs being. Almost like toddler chairs at a grown-up table. Between the lower seat and the low back rest, they just felt like the wrong proportion for the room as a whole, even with chair cushion cushions that I’ve already planned to make.
The good realization is that the new round sunroom table is actually a few inches shorter than the rectangular table in the dining room; so much lower, in fact, that the folding chairs fit right in and no longer look awkwardly short. For the win! And there, they’ll stay.
I do have a good ol’ plan for reviving these chairs, even picking up some of the materials I needed at serious clearance over the weekend thanks to Memorial Day sales. More to come on that.
Did you happen on any good finds over your Memorial Day weekend?
6 Comments
I have a bunch of those chairs! I found them in the street outside of a school with a Free sign. I cleaned mine up with some soap for hardwood floors. Can’t wait to see how you revive them!
Good tip! Thanks Lindsay!
Love them! They remind me of the chairs we used at our wedding. 200 folding mismatched wooden chairs… the people at the rental store were a bit confused when I chose them over the matching white plastic option… shows what they know!
So much prettier than the white folding chairs, I agree! Although I guess it comes down to the overall aesthetic of the event. Were they priced differently? Just curious.
[…] special-requested a set of wooden folding chairs from my parents about a month ago with a great DIY project in […]
I found one of these broken in the street recently and repaired it. I love it and am curious if anyone has any info on the manufacturer or other info. Mine has the remnants of a decal on the back edge of the seat but I cannot make out what it used to say. Looks like it had a sort of banner and bottom word is “manufacturing”. It also has stenciled letters on the back “BSS” def looks like a school chair of some sort.