I have been meaning to do a little post about some dining chairs I recently purchased from a well known catalog company called Ballard Designs. I'm not really big on buying things sight unseen but in this case my desire for "cheap" got in the way of my need for"chic". This is the first thing I have ever purchased from the Ballard catalog so I was a bit nervous. I'd be interested to hear more opinions about Ballard because I like many of the items. Some of the office furniture looks really great.
This is called the Gramercy chair and it retails in the catalog for $299 dollars depending on the fabric you choose to have it upholstered in. In this case I went with a basic off white poplin because I knew I would be slipcovering them. You can also chose the leg finish stain (I think there are 4 to choose from)
Here is the chair just unboxed. Yes they arrive in HUGE boxes!
It is really a nice all around chair that could be used so many different ways, but the thing that makes it a nice dining chair, especially if you have a large table, is the size. It is wide and deep and comfortable for a long dinner party. Men seem to like this chair because of the size as well. This would make a great occasional chair for an apartment or smaller sized living room.
I went ahead and purchased a set of the slipcovers offered from the catalog in Natural danish linen. They came to about $175 per chair so my total cost per chair was $470 dollars but...I got another 25% off because they were running an upholstery promotion at the time. Total cost per chair with the Ballard slips $396 dollars!
I wasn't really crazy about the Ballard slips, they seemed a little flimsy and they are not lined and have an open pleat at the corners. For everyday use they would be fine however and the fabric was actually very nice. I have to say they fit the chairs really well too, which surprised me.
Here are the six chairs I purchased in their new white linen slipcovers which cost me about $300 each from my upholsterer. All pre-washed and really soft these will ware well for as long as I own these chairs. The fabric is a heavy white linen.
Another shot from the side and as long as I'm on the subject of dining rooms I'll share this really special table that I found a few years ago. I have actually owned this table for about 5 years and thought that I would sell it but it may be a bit too rustic for some. Its also a rather odd size in that it is narrow but it fits this dining area to a T. It is an old door from France, with interesting raised molding and lots of crusty layers of paint. The legs are new, of course, but nice and chunky fat to match the heavy table. This sucker weighs at ton. It's about 9 feet long and can seat 8.
Here's what we did to make this door work as a table. I had a tempered glass top made and we drilled 8 holes in the glass to accommodate these metal "stand off" brackets which raised the glass up about an inch.
You can really see in this photo how the molding sat above the edges of the table and nothing would sit flush.
The standoff screws into the wood and then is finished off with a little cap. They come in a variety of colors and in this case I used a gunmetal grey.
There is actually room for another chair but most of time there is never more than 6 sitting here and I like to leave the space.
Cheap Chic and comfy too!
And don't' forget to leave a message on the prior post to enter to win the Grain Sack!
Have a wonderful weekend!
~*~kelley
