Into the Woods

For months, I’ve been looking for the right dining chairs. The chairs I’ve liked best are Amish chairs. They have the mass and the no-nonsense lines that work best with Gothic revival and with the heavy, solid cherry tables my brother built for me. I was put off by the price of the Amish chairs, though, and was hoping to find something I liked for less. But today I found just the right Amish chairs at the Amish furniture store in Walnut Cove. They had been marked down by a third because the factory filled an order with the wrong finish, or something like that. The chairs were made at an Amish factory in Ohio. They’re oak, stained with a cherry finish. I bought four — two with arms and two without.

They look severe, but they’re surprisingly comfortable. And they were made by American craftsmen.