It's been a great day !!!

We picked up our new dining room chairs today. They are beautiful!!!

We’ve had the same old chairs for about 21 years now and we got those second hand. Don’t get me wrong. We liked those chairs a lot but there’s just something about “NEW” that feels really good.

We were sort of forced into this purchase. Our old chairs have slowly died off until, along about Thanksgiving, we realized we only had three useable chairs! Now, that makes for a very small dinner party! It just looks so “college dorm” to seat a crowd using three decent dining chairs, a couple of folding metal chairs, one ancient folding wooden chair and a kitchen stool or two.

Our old chairs were actually about 36 or 37 years old and had lived a long tough life. We got them from my best friend’s mom when she bought new ones. At that time, we received six chairs. Both households consist of some large, sturdy (read “heavy”) folks and these chairs were used for every meal in both houses. They were also used for dining room table bookkeeping, game playing, and everything else one might due at the only large solid table in a household. I recovered them twice over the years. In fact, the reason they were replaced by the original owner was that her cat had scratched up the original leather seats.

They were made of teak by Scan, an upscale chain specializing in quality Scandinavian style furniture. Way above Ikea quality. (Sort of a Nordstroms/Walmart comparison.) Unfortunately, Scan left the Mid-Atlantic area several years ago. I believe they still have some stores on the West Coast and possibly a store or two in Florida. None I could find on line would ship to Maryland or we would have bought the same chairs again. (At the time the stores left this area, they did still carry them.)

We wanted good, solid wooden chairs. We hope to get another 30 years out of these. We turned to the Amish where our purchase was made to order by hand. We chose the style, the type of wood and the stain color. This kind of work takes time. We ordered them the first week in December and they came in this week. The only challenge was finding a weather window in which to go pick them up between snows. Today, we had a few short hours between snow events to sneak up to Lancaster and back.

Mission accomplished!

Another high point of the week was having great neighbors. (Of course, we knew this long before this week!) On Wednesday when we had about 4“-5” of snow in the morning, they came over and shoveled off our steps and cleaned my car off. She began shoveling my husband’s half of the driveway (He’d already left for work when most of the snow came down) and her husband finished it up with the snowblower. Believe it or not, they did it for all seven houses on the block! He even made sure the roadway was negotiable for everyone to get in and out.

On Thursday, we awoke to about 7” inches of fresh snow. The Big Guy stayed home and when he went out to work on the driveway, he was joined by this couple and another great neighbor and his snowblower.A HUGE "Thank You" goes out to Tony, Michele and Dave!!

Isn’t it terrific having such great friends right next door?