The Old Chairs

My grandmother, Ruby Dean Carthledge Holland died when I was in my twenties. She left her household goods, her home and her land to her youngest son, Ernest. My father was next to the oldest son. When she died my dad didn't receive anything tangible from his childhood home, which he was fine with. But many years later, after his youngest brother passed away, my aunt and cousin gave me 4 chairs from my grandmothers things. She never had much to begin with.  She graduated from college, however, my grandfather, a wonderful man, was a dairy farmer and they raised seven boys and just worked hard all his life.

These four chairs were just various chairs gathered around the farmhouse table that I remember sitting on when at their home.  When my niece and I went to pick the chairs up there were two that were oak and the other two were different. She took one of the different ones and I kept the other. I gave the other two oak ones to my sister and brother. The chair below is the one my niece chose.  As you can see there is a sweet little girl sitting there.  She is my great niece and her name is Ruby, named after my grandmother.  So appropriate, right?

When I went to tear the cover off the chair that I have, I found multiple layers.  I find humor in the old fabrics and like to think who sat on these fabrics, how many years were they on the chair, and just how did my grandparents come to have this chair. You wonder was it bought with cash, trading poultry goods, coupons, trading stamps?  There is really  no telling how it came to the Holland household. 

This was the top layer:

This was the second layer:

And finally the third layer.  Check out the padding on this third layer.  It was very minimal as they were not about comfort in those days, but using all they had and they didn't have much. 

  

This is a picture of the top of the chair with all the little 1/2 inch tacks all still in the chair.  I had to take all of these out and secure the seat as it was put together with good wood.  For that I got the assistance of Mr. Etsie to help.

This was the underside of the chair and notice the stamp on the bottom of 16489.  Wonder what furniture company did that during those days?

Well after sanding it down and taking all those tacks out, I covered it with some red mattress ticking and secured the seat back in the chair with the same screws that I took out. 

I also took the red ticking and made a pillow out of it.  I inserted a down feather pillow from Pottery Barn that I had on hand.  I also sewed two strips on each corner to tie the cushion down. 

Here is a pic of the back of the chair.  A little detailed carving.  However the picture is not very clear.  Sorry about that. 

 I think it turned out quite nicely.  I was so ticked to have it put together again.  What do you guys think out in blog land?  Please leave me your comments.

Don't you just love following all these wonderful creative blogs that are out there.  I know I do.