Today, when my housemates and I were walking home from a picnic on Primrose Hill, we saw two chairs by the side of the road. Now, you are probably thinking that this story involves unpleasant odors, awkward stains, or else the sorts of chairs that are usually abandoned by the side of the road, but you would be WRONG in thinking this, as the title of this blog post clearly describes said chairs as awesome.

Anyway. Upon close examination, these chairs appeared just as enticing as they had looked from across the road. My housemates and I looked at each other and shrugged. “Free chairs.” “Yeah.” “Guess we should take them.” “Guess so.” But of course we were only playing nonchalant, or at least I know I was, because this chair was freaking poetry, left by the side of the road for me to take home and cuddle.

I picked up one of the chairs. And then a woman walked out of a nearby townhouse carrying a third matching chair.

“Oh, hi,” I said, putting down the chair and petting it lightly, to show the woman that I meant no harm to her clearly beloved furnishings that she was in no way abandoning curbside. “Sorry, were you getting rid of these?”

“I am,” she said.

“Oh, um, how much are they?” I asked.

“They’re free,” the woman said, as though I were mental, as though I were the sort of person who abandons these sort of chairs for no compensation.

“Well, we live just around the corner, and they’re gorgeous,” I said. “Can we have them?”

“Of course,” the woman said. “Now let me tell you about those chairs. They’re 180 years old, and I bought them from an antiques dealer, and just had them custom upholstered, but they don’t fit in my house.”

“Er, right,” my housemates and I said, tightening our grubby little mitts on the crazy lady’s nice, expensive heirloom chairs. “Well, thank you.”

And then we got home and were all, dude, free chairs!  Here’s mine (isn’t she a beaut?) :