You Better Sit Down For This

My college roommate once told me that she wanted to write a novel about a chair. The opening line? You better sit down for this.

I feel like I could write a novel about our hunt for new dining room chairs but instead I'll keep it at a short narrative. The bottom line: we've been needing 2 new dining room chairs. We have 6 chairs that we purchased when we got married. Out of the 6, most of them have only slight signs of wear and tear, but 2 of them are in rough condition. Once upon a time when we were newlyweds, we used our dining room chairs at step stools. We were young and thought that it would be fine, although every time we did it we'd remark under our breath, "Yeah, we probably need to buy a step stool soon." Oh, we were so naive. The seats of the 2 bad chairs now have faux leather finishing that has peeled off the seat part. It's always embarrassing when your dinner guests stand up and you have to say, "I'm so sorry but you have a piece of chair stuck to your pants."

{Photo Credit: Pier One}

I went chair browsing with my mom this week and we stumbled across this super cute slip cover from Pier One Imports. I loved this! I loved the color. I loved the pattern. I loved the style. My mom generously bought me a few of these as an early birthday present. Too bad they didn't fit the frame of our chairs. Bummer. I had to take them back. 

{Photo Credit: Kirklands}

Next I found this parsons chair at Kirklands. The color was similar to the slip cover I liked but this was an actual upholstered chair. In natural Kate fashion, I began to weigh all of the pros and cons for purchasing this chair. Pros - fun color, modern look, upholstered wouldn't "shed" like faux leather. Cons- would show food stains more, not a classic piece, Eva could accidentally destroy it by somehow getting hold of a sharpie, and I'd probably want 4 of these instead of just 2 like I had planned so that I could just use my other brown chairs as end chairs (this is a con because it would be more expensive). I literally sat at Kirklands with Ryan and Eva and my mom on the phone and discussed and contemplated every possible outcome. No one should care this much about a silly chair. I just wanted to make the right choice! There was also another chair at Kirklands that I liked, and I knew that chair would be more classic and not show stains as much, but I didn't like the pattern as much either. Ahhh. In the end I bought a couple of these chairs to take home and look at in our dining room. I assembled 2 of them. I didn't like how it looked in our space. Time to make another return.

As Ryan and I were looking at the patterned chairs in our dining room we decided that we really do like the brown leather look most of all. We contemplated saving up to spend more to get real leather parsons chairs but decided that it was more than we had or wanted to spend on chairs right now. I totally agree that sometimes it's worth it to spend more on some investment pieces. I'm also very aware that we're not necessarily in the season of life where it makes sense to have nicer, fancier furniture. With a toddler and tons of youth and friends and families in and out of our house all the time, it makes more sense to keep things simple.

With all that in mind we decided to get 2 more faux leather chairs that matched the old ones we had (the new chair is on the left). The design of the new chairs is slightly updated with stiching on the back of the chair seat. Other than that they are basically the same. We went back to Kirklands on Saturday, returned the patterns ones, bought these which were less expensive, and used a coupon! Can't beat saving money on an item that you'll be more happy with than the one you are returning! I really do like this style and am happy with the decision I made. Plus I now have extensive knowledge of how to assemble a parsons chair. Happy early birthday to me!

Eva really doesn't care which cares we have. She's just happy crawling on top of the box!