I'm in Chair Heaven

This day has finally arrived! I'm so excited!!

But in order to explain why, I'm going to need to backtrack a bit.

We made the decision months ago that the dining chairs we bought for our last house were not going to work in this house, if only because we had eight of them, and we could only really fit four comfortably around the table.

We popped them up on Ebay and $500 later, they were gone.

As I trawled the Internet looking for some inspiration as to what to replace them with, I made three fairly fundamental decisions:

1) I didn't want the chairs to match the dining table (i.e. I didn't want them to be glossy black), I wanted them to contrast a bit.

2) I didn't want them to be timber. I wanted them to be interesting and kind of unique in their own right.

3) I wanted them to stay fairly neutral colour-wise, so I didn't have to commit to a particular colour scheme because my chairs dictated it.

The problem is that those requirements narrowed my options down quite a bit! I searched Gumtree and Ebay for some secondhand chairs that might fit the bill, without success.

So I turned to new options. I considered going down the slightly industrial, metal road...

Sourced here

But Tom wasn't a huge fan, and they're a little on the expensive side...

And then it hit me. Louis!!!!!!!!

See here for more on my long-standing love affair with Louis. And for the blissfully unaware, my Louis is the Kartell Louis Ghost Chair designed by Philippe Starck. I bought a replica of the armchair version of Louis as my first furniture purchase for our house, even before we moved in.

He spent a lot of time looking a bit sad and lonely while we worked on making the house liveable, and has now found a spot in my home office.

And I realised that he (or the armless versions of him) would be absolutely perfect for our dining chairs! He's not black and glossy like the dining table, he's not made of timber, and he's transparent, so he probably couldn't get any more neutral, colour-wise. He's perfect!

Sourced here

The problem is that they're virtually impossible to find secondhand, so new it must be! The cheapest price I could find online was $376 for a set of four replicas from Milan Direct, but then we'd have to add an extra $75ish for delivery on top. Still not a particularly bad price for four new dining chairs, but I wanted to do better.

So I got myself on the emailing list for each company I could find that sold them, and bided my time.

In the meantime, I spotted these chairs (and their matching table) when I was looking for an outdoor setting for our front yard, and snapped them up for $30 (including the table).

I spray painted them white, and they've served us very nicely as our dining chairs since.

But my heart still belongs to Louis. So I kept reading each email newsletter that arrived in my inbox, hoping for the right deal to come my way.

And this morning, it happened!

The header didn't inspire me...

But I scrolled down anyway, and spotted this!

Can you see it? Last on that tiny little list is "Ghost Replica Dining Chairs - FREE DELIVERY"!

YES!!!!!!

Of course I clicked immediately...

 

And woke up my poor husband with my squeal of delight.

He gave his permission to hit "Buy Me" sleepily, and you didn't have to tell me twice!

Grand total? $376! Averaging at just $94 a chair. Happy with that! And if we think back to the dining chairs that we sold for $500, we're still ahead by $94, even taking into account the $30 spent on our interim dining chairs! Definitely happy with that!

Now we just have to wait with baited breath for Louis the II, III, IV and V to arrive! Can't wait!