Chair Affair

Once upon a time I saw this chair while perusing Rachel Ashwell's online store. To me it was the perfect chair. Feminine yet rustic, pretty without being frilly. Perfect. For me. For my house. But completely out of my budget.

A few years went by, and I was thinking how nice it would be to find two chairs to flank the ends of our table. Two that are different from the other ones. One day while searching Craigslist for random goodies, I found someone selling six of these very chairs! Gently used and for a steal. I immediately emailed her, and it sounded something like, "Please oh please, please, please, pretty pretty please, as soon as possible, at your earliest convenience, whenever possible, PLEASE let me know if these chairs are still available, they would be so perfect for my dining room, just PERFECT. Please." Okay, it wasn't quite that desperate, but close.

Turns out I was too late. The chairs were taken. Someone was planning to pick them up the following week. Sigh. I'm not exaggerating when I say that these chairs and the loss of them remained at the forefront on my mind. I emailed the lady the next day just to ask if the person buying them truly wanted all six? Perhaps she only wanted four. Maybe the person selling them misunderstood my first email to mean I wanted all of them. That was possible.

Yes, the buyer wanted all six. A few days later, my obsession increased to scary levels, and I emailed her yet again. This time I asked if it were possible that she was a store and perhaps she could order more of these chairs at the same price? An agonizing day went by while awaiting her reply and when it came I couldn't believe it.

She wasn't a store, just a person with a salon business (the chairs were used at manicure tables). She actually owned eight of these chairs, and was planning on keeping two of them for herself. She told me she would like to sell them to me after all, after seeing how much I loved them so. I about jumped through the screen to hug her. There was an exorbitant amount of exclamation points in my email back to her. But I probably don't need to tell you that. :) I was thrilled beyond belief, and was reminded that obsession pays off. I mean, persistence.