The Best Things in Life are Free.

After a long break, I recently have been into refinishing, refurbishing, reupholstering and repurposing again. Add ‘re’ to something and I’m probably into it. Before we got our little kiddos, I enjoyed repurposing furniture, but haven’t really found the time (or the desire) to do it again since, until now. All of a sudden it sounds fun again! I’ve been finding little furniture deals on Craigslist and then bringing them home to redo. As evidence of my untidy garage.

Getting back into it has made me think of the first piece I ever refinished and reupholstered,
the nursery chair in Princess V’s room.

At the time (due to the high expense of our adoptions), Lee and I couldn’t justify purchasing one of the fancy Pottery Barn rockers or boutique mommy chairs that I would have liked. One day, we were out jogging in the wee hours of the morning together (I’d love to tell you that we do that every morning and we are so fitness fabulous, but honestly that was probably the first and last time we have ever jogged together. We have other less active things we do together now, like watching movies and our children. Back to the story.). We saw this beaten up, uglier-than-sin, brown chair sitting on a neighbor’s curb waiting for the garbage truck. I looked at the ugly chair and said, “I really like the shape of that ugly chair.” Lee asked if I wanted to re-something to it and I decided on a whim to give it a try. Lee jogged the chair home while I continually urged him to go faster so that the neighbors wouldn’t think I was a garbage rummager. Which technically I was.
I took it apart and sanded, painted, sewed, stretched and stapled. The process was therapeutic for me during the first stages of our adoption process.

Because it was my first piece, it wasn’t done as well as it should have been. Now, after a few years with the munchkins, it is starting to show the wear. It has a little tear in one area and it’s stained in more than one place. Crayon has been strategically colored on it as well.

This week, I kept looking at the beaten up chair and kept saying to myself,
“I really should redo that chair.“
But when I found the time to do it, I couldn’t go through with it.

This chair has held a lot of precious things.

Ethan 12 months old.
Vienna 3 weeks old.
Boston 6 weeks old.

And many special memories.
Ethan 14 months. Vienna seven days old.
Vienna three weeks old.
Ethan 14 months old.
Vienna 9 months old.
Boston 2 weeks old.
Boston 6 weeks old.
Vienna 16 months old.

There will probably come a day when I will be able to see the life of the chair in other creative purposes. I will most likely change it then to match Vienna’s or another child’s room and many many other wonderful memories will be made, but for right now – it has to stay as it is. I’m not ready. It’s funny how something can be priceless when it was free.

Blog to you soon,