At a time of life when most people are thinking about down-sizing, I’m contemplating up-sizing. We simply need more room. It’s all to do with this seemingly irresistible urge to collect things. It’s an urge which seems to be growing stronger in retirement and as I get older. Make of this what you will. Some kind of rage against the dying of the light or a form of protection against the grim reaper or at a more optimistic level perhaps just simple pleasure of collecting, to us, attractive objects.
There’s the books of course, the most numerous of collected items. Then there are the works of art, home-produced and acquired. Next in line are my guitars, 20 odd but not, thankfully, and counting.
Now coming up on the rails, so to speak, I give you our chair collection. 10 of which are represented in this blog. Starting with the most recently acquired one from the estate of my late friend. That’s the one above.
At a more prosaic level, starting below, there’s a favourite (and cheap) chair from IKEA. Then in the next photo, a chair bought a long time ago (with the intention of it being restored) from my nephew. It’s what you might call Bauhaus style. It hasn’t been restored.
Followed by another chair acquired ‘locally’ this time from a friend who had re-caned it. It’s a little stained but who isn’t. We like it anyway. Then there are two of the same chairs gifted to us by friends who emigrated to New Zealand and couldn’t find room for these two chairs that he had ‘re-engineered’. They’re not what you might call comfortable but we think they’re stylish.
There’s even one (white with red cushions) from the estate of my late mother. It’s plain but, again not to overuse the word, quite stylish in its simple way. The remaining 4 we had a hand in to a greater or lesser degree. the black and white striped one and the blue striped one we bought in junk shops, a long time ago, stripped them down, repainted and recovered or remade the soft furnishing.
The final two chairs are two (of three) chairs I made myself. They’re both famous in different ways. There is the classic Adirondack deck or porch chair. Finally, one of my proudest, creative moments, a recreation of Gerrit Rietveld’s ‘blue and red chair’ sometimes misnamed the Mondrian chair. I hope you like them, we have others but these will do for now.
