Earlier today, I asked my friends on Facebook to be creative and suggest a topic for me to blog about. I thought it might be interesting to see what they came up with. There were a few responses, but the one that stood out to me the most was from Shelly T. She suggested that I share "what [I] love about [my] favorite seat." So, my fans have spoken. Sit back and enjoy... by request, I shall hereby write about my favorite chair.

Now, I should probably note, I don't own a lot of chairs. At least before I was married, that is. My wife's apartment was fully furnished when I moved here... so, 60% of *my* chairs were forbidden from making the move. Wife's orders. The closest "favorite chair" that I had, was one of the ones left behind in Milwaukee.

Back when I still lived in the Brew City, I did a lot of work for my landlord. We became good friends, and many times, I would help him clear out apartments after the tenants moved out. For some reason, former tenants like to leave things behind. Ironically, some of the furniture I've owned has been perfectly useful free castoffs found among these items.

At one point I discovered a hideously ugly red swivel desk chair in one of the empty apartment closets. It was still usable as a chair, it just had a broken back, and a few exposed screws. Being of practical mind at the time, and lacking a suitable office desk chair, I grabbed this castoff, and made it my own. It was comfortable, fit my needs, and remained in one piece for years. When I got married, though, that was one of the items my wife, Kelli, insisted I part with. She hated the thing. And I honestly don't blame her, it was an eyesore. But it also served me well for many years. And by default, probably qualifies as my favorite chair.

As of right now, that ugly red swivel chair is probably sitting in a landfill somewhere -- in pieces. Before I moved, Kelli helped me disassemble it, and she did so with great glee. We threw the pieces away, and that was the end of my free red desk chair.

Ironically, here in my Brillion home office, my *new* desk chair is ALSO a free castoff found in one of my landlord's empty apartments. This time, though, it's a study wooden armchair. Kinda classy looking, if not for the fact that it appears well worn. Kelli let me keep this one.

Why people throw things like this away, I'll never know. But for a creative resourceful person such as myself, you can't really beat free good furniture. Even if it is red, ugly, and slightly broken.

Somewhere down the road... hopefully in the near future (maybe for Christmas), I'll finally get myself that fancy, expensive, new, black leather swivel desk chair -- the one that I've been eying in the store. But for now, and until then, I'm pretty content with my hand-me-down wooden armchair.

-Jon
posted by Jon at 11:06 PM  I   I  1 comments