The Unconventional Purpose of Dining Room Chairs

The French Provinçial Dining room set we’ve had in our homes since we married in 1987 was purchased from my Aunt Mary a few months before saying “I do.”

Many meals, Cookie Exchanges, Thanksgivings for 18 family members, and wild games of Yahtzee, Quiddler, Life, Sorry, Sequence, Code Names, Boggle, and more, plus my sewing machines and quilting bees, have all gathered around the top of the pecan table (though covered with protector pads and tablecloths through the decades). The set included (6) robust chairs, (2) with armrests. The chairs are really comfortable - I sat in one of them while I was writing The Focused Fight for (8) hours a day for almost (8) months straight, from June 2020 to March 2021. I never had back trouble sitting in that one chair with armrests, just saying.

I don’t know about you and your dining or kitchen chairs, but they are multi-purpose in our home. Sometimes they become a resting spot for a jacket or two. They are great drying racks, especially for delicate sweaters that dry beautifully when I throw a dry, fluffy towel beneath them and then hang the sweaters upside down. Even in winter, my just-washed wool and cashmere sweaters look like new once I hang them that way.

Since I started creating T-shirt Quilts, I really need my chairs to keep everything straight while I work on 4-6 quilts at a time. The quilt, backing, batting, extra T-shirts, maybe the binding, plus the NeedleOnFull bags they all go home in, all cozy while tucked in, lie over the chairs for a spell.

Come to think of it, that French Provincial dining room set has had a front-row seat to nearly four decades of our lives. It's held Thanksgiving feasts and Cookie Exchanges, my quilting bees, and witnessed fiercely competitive games of Yahtzee and Boggle; it's supported piles of T-shirt quilts and even given me the chair where I sat for hundreds of hours writing The Focused Fight. If that table and those six chairs could talk, oh, the stories they could tell, and I'm not kidding.

Furniture eventually gets scratched, worn, and maybe a little dated, but I think that's part of its beauty. It's got to be over 80 years old, but going strong for my/our purposes. I've thought about getting something else, but it's never been a priority. Those marks on both the table and chairs (there is a piece missing on the table) are evidence of a life being lived around it. My dear Aunt Mary probably never imagined when she sold us that dining room set before our 1987 wedding just how much living would happen there. The table has witnessed our wonderful family and friends, which feels profound as I think more deeply than I originally set out to share in this blog post. Life has a funny way to wake us up!

Turns out, some of the brightest sunshine we've ever manufactured has happened right around that old pecan dining room table, and I've got quilts to prove it! I actually name one of my favorites: Manufacturing Sunshine!

bSoleille!

Terri

Photos: The dining room table/chairs today, 8/22/2026; and Thanksgiving 2021

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