The Studio Chair Saga

If you’ve ever tried to replace a beloved piece of furniture, you know the emotional rollercoaster I’ve been on. For me, it’s been a long, exhausting, borderline absurd quest to find a replacement for my 30+ year-old barrel/tub/club-style chair.

The chair. WIth Cover. Far too scary to show the public wihout the cover...

This chair came to me in 1993 as part of a couch and coffee table set, and it’s been with me through everything — sketching, braiding, crying, recovering, eating dinner. It’s the perfect height, the perfect shape, and somehow, despite its age, still more comfortable than anything I’ve sat in in the past year.

What makes it truly irreplaceable is how perfectly it fits my workspace — because I built my workspace to match the height of the chair. My desk mimics a watchmaker’s bench: low, compact, and built for detail work. And this chair is the only one I’ve ever found that’s the right height for it. Everything else is too tall, too deep, too stiff. I just want something comfy, the right width, and the right height. That’s it.

It’s survived countless moves. At one point, when I moved from Shelbyville back to Louisville, I left it behind, thinking I’d easily find a replacement. I couldn’t. After a month of trying every chair in the new house — dining chairs, office chairs, even a folding one — I found I couldn’t. I completely underestimated the importance of this chair in my artwork.

We contacted the new owners of the house we’d sold (with the chair and couch still in it) and asked if we could buy back that one chair. Miraculously, they said yes.

perfect height for my work desk.

already wearing out the cover

There were two chairs originally… and man, I wish I’d bought both.

Over the last five years, I’ve kept an eye out for a new one — hoping something would pop up that felt right. But everything is either close-but-not-quite or wildly off the mark. I took measurements and went to every nearby furniture store that may have this type of chair and measured and measured and none of them were even close.

More to the point, I sit in this chair cross legged sometimes. So the chair has to be big enough for me to do that. Also, sometimes one of my cats INSISTS on supervising my work up close, so there has to be room for me AND a cat. Lol.  But it can't be too big that it takes up my entire space... The height is also VERY important..  I have to be able to reach all of my little cabinets and drawers and be in a perfect spot to see my work on my desk..

Now, my chair is disintegrating. The original cloth is worn down to threads, and it’s been living under a chair cover for years. I even spilled black dye all over it at one point — a permanent badge of usefulness, that no amount of scrubbing could fix. The frame creaks, the cushion sags, and the whole thing feels like it’s held together by hope, willpower, steel springs, and a little arty magic. I don’t even know if I could ask someone to recover it — they’d probably take one look and say, “Ewww… I’m not touching that, lady.”

So for now, the barrel/tub/club chair lives on. A little saggy, a little squeaky, a little stained — but still working.

If anyone out there has found a magical chair that feels like a hug, fits a low desk, and doesn’t cost a small fortune, I’m all ears...