Mission

A good friend once said to me: "If a door opens in front of you - get off your ass and dance through it...laughing."

I'm trying, Nancy!

Thursday, June 7, 2012

The purple chair

I loved my purple chair!  
 Was it a good-looking chair?  Not especially.   
Was it comfortable?  Definitely not!  
Did I sit in it often? Um, is once a year often?
Nevertheless, I loved that chair because my Dad made it for me.  If you knew my Dad, you know that he wasn't exactly a handy kind of guy.  He owned  2 power tools (a drill and a jig-saw), a couple of screwdrivers, a hammer and a large supply of black electrician's tape.  (His preferred method of repair for just about everything.)
Anyway, many years ago, he & Mom were getting rid of the adirondack chairs in their back yard and I jokingly suggested that he use them as a pattern to build me a new one.  Ha ha, big laughs all 'round.  
Well, damned if he didn't!!  He proudly gave it to me for my birthday in 1999.  It was unfinished, because as much as he didn't like building or fixing things, he liked painting even less.  I think he expected me to paint it white, because theirs had been white and I had liked them.  Nope, I painted it purple!  When he saw it, he was obviously surprised by my colour choice, but thrilled that we had designed a whole area of our garden around it.  I told him it was perfect, but I needed a foot-stool to go with it....He became ill soon after, and I never got my foot-stool.
When he died in 2000, the bunch of us were over helping Mom to clean out his things, and in his workshop in the basement, I found it.  My foot-stool was 3/4 finished.  


I've been in denial for years about the condition of my chair.  Sure, it was a little the worse for wear, but surely it was still salvagable?  Maybe it just needs a paint touch-up.  I finally had to admit that it was worn out, beyond repair, and downright dangerous.  It was time for it to go :-(



 I found a resin version and I could've been swayed to go with pink, but when I saw the $299.00 price tag, I choked and left the store in a hurry.  I only took a picture of it, because that little pillow was really comfy and I wanted to remember to try to make one.


Dan found a "bear chair" kit for $49.00  Okay, that's more like it.  He built it for me, then I just had to take it apart 1 piece at a time and glue it and screw it back together.


Okay, it's stopped raining;  time to paint it.


Primed


Ta da!  (Same foot-stool)


It's even comfortable, so I can sit in it and enjoy a glass of wine.
Cheers, Dad.


2 comments:

Mel150 said...

Love it!! That area of the yard looks all new now.

Cheryl said...

I love it too. It gets the last sun of the day, so it's become my habit to sit there with a cocktail and a book in the late afternoon/early evening. Ahhh!