old work

 Six chairs were bought five years ago, they had all originally been made with cane seating. The seats must be more than one hundred years old, and the cane had given up on most of them. The seats had been partly replaced with green padded seats, a modern simplification which destroyed the elegance of the old "Wiener Geflecht". They were bought as a job lot, the old owner claimed a high price for them, but finally they were sold at a reasonable value. The chairs do not all match exactly, they were all individually hand made.

All these years after the original purchase the padded seats have all been removed again, unscrewed, unglued. The struts with the holes drilled in them to hold the cane have been repaired as far as is possible. Finally, a quantity of split cane was ordered, and duly arrived by post.  In what amounts to weeks of intermittent work the cane was slowly and inexpertly woven into the first seat with the help of informative tutorials from the internet. Each tutorial had a different approach, and each one was only partly applicable to the real existing problem.

Three months later, and the second last chair is nearing completion, the hands have learnt how to deal with the split rattan canes allowing a steady slow progress from one job to the next. There is now one chair in the process of having the seat weave made, two waiting for the beading around the edge to be finished and one that has not been started on yet. Two are finished and one was still in good original condition. It is strange work from another time, it would cost one hundred and seventy euros to have each chair done commercially. The work is from another time because it would not be possible to include that amount of work in the cost of new furniture and leave the furniture maker with any profit.

There are things which are just not possible to pay for.