Goodbye, 1976 – Hello, 2020

One of the things I struggle with is letting go of things I love that have served me well for many decades but are now beyond repair. Such is the case with my beloved wicker basket chair – a classic, one of the first things I bought for my first apartment in 1976. It has moved with me from the Upper West Side to east midtown to Washington Heights to Chelsea. In the last few years, bits of the thin cane lashing that binds the horizontal strips of rattan supporting the back have begun to crack and fall off. It’s been going on for so long that many of those strips have sprung free on the ends, tempting the cats as playthings.

I considered learning how to repair the chair myself when it was just half of one row, but now all three rows are going. There’s no guarantee the two rows on the base won’t follow suit, although they’re subject to less stress because they don’t have to flex like the back does. A professional repair would cost several hundred dollars – perhaps even more than I’d pay for an intact original now, if I could find one. (So much for a $30 chair!)

I spent two days scrolling though wicker chairs on the internet. This one’s too big; that one’s too small; this one looks flimsy; that one’s the wrong color; this one belongs in a Florida sun room; that one looks scratchy; this one might be destroyed by the cats. Finally, last night around midnight, I hit “Buy Now” on something that fits the bill. It’s more than I planned on spending, but less than the cost of repairing the old chair – and it looks like it belongs in an adult living room rather than a hippie den. A couple other pieces of furniture have travelled around the city with me for four decades, but only this one says, “You were young once.” I think that’s why I hated to let it go.

Before and after pictures when the new one arrives.

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