Farewell, Fair Roorkhees –
This morning I mailed two Roorkhee chairs to customers on either side of the continent. It was a bit of a bittersweet job. I’m glad to have these chairs completed and out of the house. But the kids liked sitting in them, and I became enamored with them for some surprising reasons.
For one, they are damn comfortable – as comfy as a Morris chair. And they look good with our traditional/modernist furniture. But that’s not where my affection ends.
This week, my daughter Katy and I have been humping these chairs all over the city to photograph them – across parking lots, through parks and in and out of cars. I carried one of these chairs with one hand and while loaded with a complete photography and lighting rig. Even Katy was able to tote one of these chairs all day without any complaint – each chair weighs about 10 or 11 lbs.
And when it came time to pack them up to their final destinations, all the leather, brass and wood fit into a box measuring just 24” x 12” x 6”. With the packing material, the box weighed between 13 and 14 lbs. I could have packed them into an even smaller box if UPS had carried the right size.
Within a few minutes of packing up these chairs, I received two more orders for them.
I’m going to make only one more run of these chairs this year – I have books to edit, lay out and write. So if you want me to make one of these chairs for you, my recommendation is for your to make them for yourself. They are incredibly easy to construct, and my plans for them will be published in a fall issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine.
But if making them doesn’t interest you (bovine phobia?), here are the details for this last run of 2012:
• The chairs will be in genuine mahogany, finished with garnet shellac, just like the chairs shown above.
• All the hardware is solid brass or steel and aged to look vintage.
• On leather, I’ll offer a choice of colors for this run that ranges from the cognac color shown above to a rich black.
• The depth and width of the seat can be customized for you – the originals were quite narrow (about 16″ between the legs). The current run has about 17-1/2″ between the legs for “modern” hips. And I can go to about 19″ before engineering becomes an issue.
• The chairs are $750 each, delivered in the United States.
If you want one, let me know before June 30 at chris@lostartpress.com.
— Christopher Schwarz
