A Chair To Remember...
I received an e-mail from my daddy today asking, "Where are the blogs?" Well I've been distracted. We've been doing some updates to the house, and while that provided plenty of blog fodder I always find it hard to concentrate on writing when things are undone.
The house is back in order and today I completed a project that has cleared my mind and relaxed my soul.
While I was away, we repainted the living room and replaced the floors. Updated colors led to updated decor. We had a door removed and replaced with wall which left room for something. I decided that something would be the Christmas tree, but until then... what?
My Grandmother's Rocking Chair
Almost 20 years ago my parent's were going up to visit my grandfather. He was moving and downsizing. He had a lot of stuff to get rid of. Mom asked me, "Is there anything you want?" I asked for, "Grammy's rocking chair" and it rode back to South Carolina from Pennsylvania in the back seat of my parents car.
The only memory I have of my grandmother and that chair is me sitting on the floor at her feet while she did my hair. Those weren't the best of our times together, but memories nonetheless. I wanted the chair to remember her by.
The chair didn't move in with me until January of 2001 when we had moved into our first house and I finally had a place to put it; the "junk room" that would one day be the baby's room.
From December 30, 2002
Since I don‘t know when I will have time or feel up to it again, I decided to clean up the baby's room. I thought it was an impossible task but I got it done. Now there will be a little room in the closet to hang baby clothes and I can start visualizing how to set up the room. Next I need to get the rocking chair fabric redone. I have a couple brochures for baby furniture to look at. I can't wait until I have my 12-week appointment. In less than one week, I‘ll get to hear the baby's heartbeat.
Sadly three days later I had a miscarriage. In hindsight I knew something was wrong. Recalling the days that led up to the miscarriage I wrote,
I then busied myself doing everything under the sun except calling the doctor. I cleaned out our spare bedroom, which was to be the baby's room. It was becoming a storage room and I couldn't stand it. I wanted to sit in my grandmother's rocking chair and imagine the room fully furnished. - January 15, 2003
Another year passed that the clean room became junky again and there my grandmother's rocking chair sat. I was not inspired to update the upholstery because it would be like writing in a pregnancy journal for the baby that never came.
In December of 2004 I finally delivered my 10 pound bundle of joy and I dug the dusty rocking chair out of the closet and draped a blanket over it.
Within a couple months I bought fabric to have the chair reupholstered and occasionally searched for someone who could refinish and reupholster the chair. With the joy and pains of motherhood, I could never find the time or energy to even think of doing it myself.
Months turned into years and the rocking chair went back in the closet to make room for a big boy bed and there it stayed until now.
Thanks to Pinterest I learned what I needed to do in order to reupholster the chair myself. I also "refinished" it with a mixture of white vinegar and olive oil. I colored in a few scratches with a touch up marker and lo and behold the fabric that I bought ten years ago matches our decor perfectly.