I'm working on our 5 photobook set spanning 50+ years of our lives. I'm on 2003 and came across photos of when our son returned from the Peace Corps and settled in Washington, D.C. He and Sarah invited us over for Thanksgiving but didn't have enough furniture in their basement (garden) apartment.
Therefore, crazy people that Art and I seem, we packed our two plastic lawn chairs in our van and drove cross country from Illinois. Keola and Sarah prepared our Thanksgiving meal with all its fixings and we had a great time.
(I just noticed that they were using plastic lawn chairs in their apartment too.) 😄
We were on some other road trip and saw those chairs on sale some place. I think maaaybe it was something like $6 a piece. Whatever it was, it was too good to pass up. They were on our deck at first, but we began using them in the family room after we gave our loveseat to our daughter who was moving into her own condo.
We brought the chairs with us when we moved to Hawaii in 2008. And now, here we are with our 18 year old chairs and it sits outside on our patio. It's a convenient place for us to sit where we can put on/take off our shoes.
When my brother came to visit with mom during the pandemic we had them sit outside on those comfortable lawn chairs to chat.
Since plastic seems to deteriorate faster in Hawaii I thought our trusty chairs might also disintegrate, but it's still doing fine.
Do you have any furniture that you just can't let go?
Yes, a lot of mine. I bought it in the 60's and 70's after we moved to Caney from Bartlesville in 1969. I went to work for a high end furniture store that carried Drexel and Thomasville furniture. They let me buy one room at a time and pay it out at no interest. I also paid wholesale plus 10% for freight for the furniture. So I have had most of this furniture since then and it's still very nice.
ReplyDeleteI seem to keep all my furniture over the years too.
ReplyDeleteI am thinking of the two sewing machines in the basement. One was my Mom's which the family wanted to keep around for some reason. The other is Sue's, but I don't think she has used it since we mixed in 16 years ago. We brought them 400 miles across province too and paid for the privilege.
ReplyDeleteThis is strange, I'm working on a blog right now about a certain piece of furniture I own! Anyway, I don't have anything old (I sold or gave away everything I owned in 2016 and started over) but I enjoyed the backstories behind those chairs of yours, Kay :^)
ReplyDeleteThat's the story of the Traveling Chairs! Sounds like they're made of tougher plastic. (A friend gave me a used Rubbermaid plastic folding lawn chair. That brand seems to be sturdy for the long run.)
ReplyDeleteI have 3 special items: A small upholstered rocking chair that my grandma sat in. She was about 4'10", and I'm 5'1", so it's comfortable. I've recovered it twice. The first time was to use rocking my son, who's now 33. This rocker comes with a small 3-legged wooden milking stool with a handle. As a small girl, I'd sit on it next to my grandma's rocker and she'd stroke my hair and ponytail. I also have an early 1950's sturdy upholstered rocking chair, with springs in it's movement. My parents got it used, and rocked ME in it starting in 1954. It's been reupholstered twice since, and it's my favorite living room chair now for my tired 67-year-old body after work. We also have my grandpa's old wheelbarrow. My Dad and I refinished it when I was in junior high. I changed the worn handles and refinished it again when I was pregnant with my son. To clear the bowl, we had it sand-blasted and on the back edge, the letters WPA appeared from being embossed into the metal! We know that my grandpa worked for the WPA for awhile (Works Progress Administration,) in Oklahoma. So, did he get it at the end of a job, or did he swipe it from the job site? My son has used this wheelbarrow probably more than his great-grandpa ever did!
You may want to type your chair story up, and tape it to the bottom of the chairs. They travel! Linda in Kansas
Our guest room has the furniture I received for my 8th grade graduation gift in 1966. It's white, French provincial with a canopy bed. This year the canopy finally disintegrated so the bed is now a 4-poster. The furniture has lived in 6 homes, all the homes I have lived in these past 56 years.
ReplyDeleteI like your plastic chairs and you sure got your money's worth. When I moved here in 2004 I bought all new so nothing is really old.
ReplyDeleteWay too many pieces, and they are all the old brown pieces. From my grandma: Desk, 2 dressers, chair, a tall clock. More brown stuff from my mother and grandfather. We did buy a modern table and chairs and a new sofa. LOL
ReplyDeleteI need all new furniture but with a cat, I don't want to waste the money. I will probably have trouble getting rid of my late husband's recliner. There are many memories attached to it. Those plastic chairs still look good! They must be very durable.
ReplyDeleteThat is amazing that those chairs have lasted so long!! I have a small rocker and a slipper bench from my mother-in-law. They need cleaning, but they are darling. My kids store the crib and a rocker in my basement and have told me to give them away!
ReplyDeleteThose lawn chairs were quite the find. Much of the furniture I kept from the past is now in my youngest son's house, an oak sideboard, the highchair my granmother bought for me when I was born and both my kids sat in. My family of origin moved frequently and not much furniture survived except for a small round coffee table and a small half round table that came from my parents. Both are in use. I must have picked up my Mother's predilection for round tables. Twenty years ago I bought a round dining round table made of barn wood and four ladder back chairs in color crayon colors, blue, red, green and yellow. I love it but I wonder where that will end up?
ReplyDeleteWhen we moved here from Colorado in 2008, we got rid of just about everything. I do have a glass-topped table that I bought at a yard sale in the 1980s, and I just couldn't give it up. I still have it and am glad I managed to get it here in one piece. Love those plastic chairs, BTW. :-)
ReplyDelete18 years seems like forever in plastic chair years! The only furniture that I can't let go are the ones I make myself. All the ones I bought have come and gone through the years.
ReplyDeleteI have plastic lawn chairs also and they never come apart but sure get dusty and so we rarely sit in them also it's usually too hot or too cold!
ReplyDeleteWay back in the '70's when we lived in Rochester, NY I bought an old oak dresser at a garage sale. The previous owners had used it on the back of their truck when they went camping in the '20's... yes the twenties. I refinished it and my daughter used it in her bedroom as a kid. It went with her to college and to several apartments and finally to her home now. Her dad and I helped her move it downstairs yesterday to her new sewing area as a storage place for her fabric stash. She and her Dad did a re-glue afterwards... shipping it downstairs loosened the joints! How much longer !! Still a favorite!!
ReplyDeleteWe have more old things than new things, some actual antiques that are old family pieces. Our dining room table, chairs, and buffet belonged to Tom's grandmother.
ReplyDeleteI could think of some things I would like to get rid of in a hurry. How about the dining room table and chairs?
ReplyDeleteWe've trucked so much around with us. I'm trying to declutter, but that hasn't gone well!
ReplyDeleteWhere do you get your photobooks from?
Costco. I'm just hoping they don't change their system AGAIN.
DeleteAh, we don't have one here. I've done them all online, but I'm looking for a new source.
DeleteRattan furniture and old tansus. I can change out the cushion covers and sew my own and I have always loved tansus. We inherited some very nice koa pieces from a dear old friend and so my living and dining rooms are very eclectic. Actually, it is eclectic everywhere because of those vintage pieces that I will never outgrow.
ReplyDeleteI've downsized so often in the last ten years that my one remaining chair is a Windsor, wedding gift to my parents.
ReplyDeleteIt is nice to see your cherished chairs. I love the way you write stories about ordinary things, and make them very special
ReplyDeleteI had to replace most of my furniture after a house fire. I lost a rocking chair I liked.
ReplyDeleteCool post Kay
ReplyDeleteGosh, yes. Lots of them. The main thing I think is my antique bedroom outfit. It's from the '20s and I bought it when I was in my 20s and I thought to myself, this will be something I have for all my life. It has held me through the years, young, pregnant, a mother 3 times over, reading bedtime stories to my kids, middle aged woman starting over, and now I am 65. I love that bed and the knowledge that it has been my safe place for over 40 years. If I am lucky, it will cradle me when I breathe my last. And then it will wind up at an estate sale, and some young person will buy it and wonder, just as I did, about the people who slept in it before, and the bed will hold its secrets.
ReplyDeleteI love old furniture.