Once upon a time, after a little too much Pinterest, it seemed a good idea to have a mismatch of chairs around kitchen the table. Easy & cheap right? Nope. We wanted a mix of half a dozen vintage school / industrial kinda chairs which you would think would be easy enough to curate, though turns out it’s really difficult to get a mix that are different, but have something in common. We decided we’d aim for three pairs rather than singles as these tend to sit together a little easier. The first chair we picked up was this French school chair from Malvern antiques fair, I think we gave about £35 for it which seems about the going rate.

I found a partner for it on Ebay this week, for just £10. Bargain #smugface. Arrived, and erm…yeah…it’s not the same #goddamnit. I’m now on the search for an actual partner, if I’m successful, I’ll sell on the new one, it can stay a while in the meantime.

Sort of following the school chair theme, the second chair we bought was a teachers chair, when we went to collect it I wasn’t overly keen, but after a bit of time, stripping and polishing it’s grown on us. It also occurred to me it could essentially be a carver type chair, so another would be nice, and then they could reside at either end of the table…

Unexpectedly, after a bit of shameless Tweeting I tracked down a partner for him, so I’m now the proud owner of two teachers chairs.

The one on the right is still in Wales, minor detail hey. Both of these cost £15, they need upholstering once fabric is decided, but that’s a whole other post. So that’s four (three technically, but I’m on it) down and two to go…Next I tried a chapel chair in the mix.

I renovated this and love it, but it’s not right at all, it’s too dinky and delicate. It’s destined for a bedroom I think. I’ve also got two of these wiggly back chairs that were my Grandma’s.

My Grandma had them painted white, I’ve stripped off the paint but I’ve still to polish them. They also need recovering, but it will take a good while to strip off all Grandma’s layers of coverings…she was indecisive too. I’ll see what they look like once they are done, but not looking like these will take a part in the line up…oh well, there will be plenty of places to sit in the bedrooms.