Alright, first things first.
My mom is an antique-er in a major way.
She is an expert in antique glass and a few other things that I am ignorant to. And I would go so far to say that her collection is worth twice or more what the house that holds them is worth. So needless to say my
whole life I have been living around, eating off of, sleeping in, and sitting
on antiques. But I have not had much
respect for the things, UNTILL this past weekend. Now rewind to Saturday night.
After spending the day on the lake I came back to the house
to relax by myself and I decided to do that best by smoking a tobacco pipe while enjoying
a microbrew in front of the fire pit on the patio (this might be the summer of the fire pit).
Well with all fires outside I have come to expect the “cold
back”. That’s what happens when the side
of your body that is not facing the fire feels cold. And this fire experience was no different. Once the fire turned to red hot coals my back
started getting cold while I was sitting in one of my collapsible chairs.
As I was sitting there with the cold back in my collapsible chair
I pondered on ways to remedy the “cold back”.
And then it dawned on me! Those
antique chairs of mom’s I have been sitting in all my life were designed to
combat the cold back.
They remind me of something strait out of an Edgar Allen Poe
poem.
In the past I really
disliked sitting in chairs like this because the side wings hinder eye to eye
conversation, but now I know they weren’t’ designed for that.
Those high backs, deep cushion, and winged sided chairs were made to reflect and focus that radiant heat from the fire back onto the person sitting in it. They were made to capture the warmth from a
hearth! The design makes total sense to
me now. I have this new respect of antiques and the geniuses who designed them.
In today’s life we don’t sit around hearths anymore so the chairs are
just around to look nice and have lost their real functionality. I’m going to have to start keeping my eye out
for antique functional design. Now to
make an outdoor fire pit chair with that a similar design.
