Chair Stories

Last week I shipped a Continuous Arm Rocker to a customer in AZ. This is a story about his chair: Seth and I stood in the yard and stared. Sheds and and lean-tos filled to overflowing with machines surrounded us; rusty mammoths from a bygone age. Machines that didn’t...

Last Friday I delivered a Velda's Rocking Chair to Patricia.  It's the first time I'd left the house in two weeks and it seemed like quite the adventure, even though it was no more than twenty minutes away.  I started building the chair at Curtis Buchanan's...

On my way home from a holiday visit to my future in-laws in KY, I delivered Michelle her new arm chair.  Here's a story about her chair: As I whittled spindles for a Birdcage Arm Chair, I thought back on the day I first made spindles for the man who taught my...

Painting a Comb Back Rocker for Sandra and Joseph, my mind wandered over the distant past, and I started daydreaming about Dave Sawyer. Dave Sawyer is my chairmaking grandfather. I learned from Curtis Buchanan, and Curtis learned from Dave. When I first visited Dave,...

Cara had been looking for a rocker her size for ten years. I made her a Comb Back Rocker one thickness of Nancy Evans' 'American Windsor Chairs' shorter than it's usual height, put simpler hand-holds on it and made the seat of walnut. Walnut seats on traditional...

Life's been busy here. Two classes in April (one here and one at Roy Underhill's) and a two week class at Penland the end of May means I've turned about 200 chair parts in the last month. Morgan and I have put in a garden here. I made my first wheelbarrow wheel...

Last week my sweetheart Morgan delivered the last four loop backs in a set of six loop backs and two sack backs.  Who knew four chairs would fit in a Prius! Here's the story I wrote about the chairs: I was off recently to buy a white oak log for a set of loop...