Doing the (Wood) Work Part 1

You are about to enter into one of my passion projects and join my mind on a long range analogy. This series will be about a wood working project I recently started. The why behind this project is to create something or me and my future spouse. In the process, I have noticed some great analogies to how wood working applies to the way I view marriage & the perspectives I have around relationship. <3

This week, I want to focus on what the project is.

I am creating a conversation chair.

If you google it, most images look like two chairs facing one another. I first saw such a thing in the Palmer Family Residence in Davenport Iowa back in 2013. I fell in love with the idea of being able to look across at another person in conversation. This being contrast to side by side on a bench or across a table. Conversation and connection are pretty important to me :)

Doing a little(very little) research on conversations chairs, they came from the Victorian age and were utilized for courting scenarios. They allowed a couple to converse and have a more intimate conversation. The arm rest between the couple kept them an acceptable distance apart based on the social standards of the time. There are even conversation chairs that had three seats to them so a chaperone would sit there. Kinda like today when someone sits behind kids at the movie theater ha ha. ;)

The moment I saw that chair, I got the idea in my head that I would have one in my home some day. I had it in my mind to use wood from my Grandparent's land to carve it out. When I finally decided I was going to do this thing, we didn't have a big enough tree to carve unless I wanted to sit on the ground in our conversation chat. Hee hee <3 In exploring this possibility, I discovered that we did have wood that had been previously harvested from the land. <3 With this lucky find, the project began.

The significance of my Grandparent's land is that I may not have it in our family forever and it is full of memories for me. That forest captures the essences of values that have been instilled into me my whole life. Essences that started long before me. The relationships my parents and grandparents have on both sides have given me many values to building a marriage. I plan to have a party in those woods with twinkle lights and love and laughter and celebration when I get married. All of the goodness of the past, the present, and the future are soaked up into a precious wood working project. <3

The intention behind this project is building something that will capture a relationship. It will be a place we go to laugh, to fight, to figure things out together. A place where we are still, a place where we feel seen and known and heard. A place where we are reminded of why we came together in the first place and a place where we remember our commitment to each other.

Each piece along this process for me comes with love letters & love lessons <3 I am excited to share with you as the weeks progress <3