the chair story: a real conclusion.

you can read the chair story in full here: part 1 & part 2.

so we got the chair back in september, amazingly. aaaannnndddd...it was gross. so we stuck it in the shed and it was stinky and gross in the shed and in the back of my mind. can you say square one?

in december, jb was clearing out the shed for our holiday party and obviously the chair had to go, since it was not fit for humans to sit on. so it came inside, into the laundry room. again, not a solution, but who has time to deal with all these things? so it annoyed me in the laundry room for a few weeks until i asked jb to bring it elsewhere. and then it moved to the back porch, where it hung out for another week or two.

and then my need to complete tasks took over and i decided to handle it. months ago, right when we got it back initially, i had contacted a business called cardenas upholstery near our house. this place has exclusively 5-star yelp reviews, but all the reviews said it was sketchy and weird but to deal with that because they do great work. i figured i had already experienced the sketchiest scenario imaginable, so i emailed them pics of the chair and asked for a quote and how much fabric they would need. they got back to me, but i just dropped the ball - didn't feel like trying to decide on fabric, etc etc.

but. this was the time. so a couple weeks ago, i emailed cardenas's shop back asking if the quote was still good. they said sure. i looked at the entire internet for a few days and then just bit the bullet on a fabric that seemed reasonably priced and like it might look ok on the chair.

friday the 16th i was working from home, so i drove the chair to the shop on my lunch hour. let me pause and describe this place for you. there are no signs. there are not actually doors. it's on a random dead-end and is in the same lot as an auto repair shop (from what i can tell) and there are pieces of machinery and cars and random other stuff everywhere. so weird. i get out of my car and a dude comes out of the tent-like structure to my left. i told him i had a chair. he said "did you call?" and then pulled my chair out of my trunk and brought it inside. i followed him with the fabric and he plops the chair down on a surface. this place is covered in torn-up boat seats and every furniture piece you can imagine. there is foam all over. it's dark. there are some tools and a desk with 800 things on it, most of which probably don't belong on a desk.

so, my confidence isn't super high at this point. dude hands me a spiral notebook that looks like it's come out of a seventh grade boy's backpack at the end of the school year. he tells me to write my name on it, so i put that, my email, cell number and a description of my chair and fabric, figuring at least i can do what i can do...and i leave.

i don't have any indication of how long this process will/should take or when/how i can expect my chair back. but i figure it's been through worse, so...here we go. then yesterday afternoon, my phone rings. i answer and the first words i hear are "what side of the fabric do you want us to use?" i was like...whaaaa? and then i remembered the chair and told him to use the side i preferred. he hung up. men of few words over there. i figured at least it was a good sign that they seemed to be associating my fabric with my phone number, and i assumed it would be another week or so.

oh, no. i got off my 8am conference call this morning and had missed a call on my cell phone. i called back and the dude says "your chair is ready".

boom.

it looks amazing in real life. they did an unbelievable job. they charged half of what any other place in town quoted me. one year later: victory. 

the end!