My New Reading Chair…

Earlier in the week I asked you where you all did your reading and for any advice on where I could get the perfect reading chair. Well thank you for all your recommendations, and do keep them coming as you can never have too many, however I managed to find it today on a random shopping trip where I was looking for anything but. Here it is…

I am really chuffed with it, even though it wasn’t what I initially thought I wanted. I had in mind a big grand leather Victorian number but The Beard and I were having a meander around some of the Wirral’s rather wonderful antique (and house clearance shops, but the Beard said I should make it sound glamorous) for a) a tall old cabinet for the bathroom b) a chest of drawers c) a trunk d) a grandfather clock e) a free standing bath f) an old Victorian bed g) a chaise longue. We had spotted ‘a’ in the last shop we went in and I suddenly spotted the chair in the corner of the room looking rather unassuming, sat on it and fell in love. I was expecting it to be a fortune yet it was a mere £40 – bargain!!! Its from the 1920’s and i love to think about all it has witnessed (a World War for example) and all the people who have sat in it, possibly reading. It also matches the theme of cream and peacock blues and greens we, well more me, have decided the bedroom will be… as you can see it is a little bit ‘unfinished’ at the moment. I call it Pompeii chic.

If that wasn’t enough I was also bought a new bagless Vax which I love almost as much. Hoovering and reading are two of my favourite things, I think I am really getting old now aren’t I? Oh and not to be left out Oscar got his first collar, oddly he doesn’t love his present as much as I do mine!

What have you all been up to this weekend?

Where Do You Read? (And Can You Help Me Find The Perfect Reading Chair?)

As I mentioned earlier I have been faffing over posts for today, then something really obvious dawned on me. On the latest episode of the ‘book based banter’ podcast, The Readers, that I co-host with Gavin of Gav Reads, we are talking about where we like to read. So I thought I would combine that with a small plea for some help with some bookish furniture I am trying to hunt out. First up though, where do we read?

I think I must be quiet boring/average as I really read in one of two places in the main and another if I am very lucky. Most of my reading I have to confess, rather shamefully as a lot of it is for work, I do in bed or on it. There is something comfortable and silent about my room which makes it much more preferable than the lounge which is my second place of choice for reading curled up on the sofa. However the lounge is quite a TV hub and so I tend to avoid it as I can’t read with any sound around me, which interestingly cuts me off from reading in libraries, coffee shops and on public transport on the whole. Oddly I did used to be able to read on the tube in London, maybe because nobody really talks to each other on there.

I have mentioned before that currently we are turning the mezzanine area above the bathroom into a ‘reading loft’ this will be walled with book shelves but isn’t tall enough for you to sit in properly so will be lined with a mattress (so it is an extra bedroom for guests) and loads of cushions and bean bags etc. However we are also going to do up the bedroom and this will add two new reading areas. The first is my all time favourite place to read, and the one I get to do the least, the bath! I can literally lie in a bath with a book for hours and hours just topping up the hot water as and when. Well after much coercion and debate The Beard has agreed that we can get a Victorian free standing one as part of the new look bedroom but it doesn’t stop there…

The rooms here are huge tall Georgian ones, as it is part of a converted mansion, so as well as a bath and all the normal bedroom furnishings (bed, wardrobes, chest of drawers etc) we are making one part of the room a study area which will be made up of book shelves, office gear and a wonderful old Victorian leather topped desk and chair my mother is belatedly getting me for my 30^th birthday, something like this…

In that area I also want to have a really, really comfy reading chair where I can hide away with a book pretending I am lost in the Victorian era. So I wondered if you had any reading chair recommendations. Have you inherited a lovely old one or bought a special new one? All advice and thoughts welcomed. Oh and of course, where do you read?