Chairs!

We've had our new dining room table for almost a month now - and gave our old table and chairs to some friends. That means we've had no chairs! We *do* have a couple of flea market finds...some old ladderback chairs that are a little too short for our table. My orginal plan was to just collect old chairs like that from yardsales and flea markets. The problem that I'm having is finding them in good condition (not wobbly with worn out seats) and also I'm having trouble finding old chairs that have the proper seat height. I even searched ebay, but I'm reluctant to buy chairs from there because I can actually try them out to determine their stability, plus usually if they are really nice chairs, they're just way out of my budget - and THEN there are shipping costs.

Last week on Ebay, though, I did find someone that had an Ebay store and he sells rocking chairs, ladderback chairs, etc. The chairs were a decent price, about $79 each, but shipping was $30 per chair - and I need 8 chairs! But I read about his chairs on his site and he said that the chairs were make by Hinkle Chair Company in Springfield, Tennessee - just a hop, skip and a jump from here (no shipping costs - we can pick them up ourselves! ) Hinkle Chair company is a family owned business that has been around since 1834 and they are the company that makes rocking chairs for Cracker Barrel - which are really good quality, sturdy chairs that will last forever.

So I did a little research and found the Hinkle Chair Company website. I contacted someone from the company and asked him to give me a price on the chair that I'm looking for. He quickly got back to me and let me know the price was $36 to $41, depending on if I wanted slat or rush seats, and all 8 chairs would cost me about $322 if I went with the slat seats. I couldn't believe it! I was expecting to pay at least $80 to $100 per chair!!!!

I talked it over with Jeff and we decided to go ahead and put our order in because, well, we need chairs, lol. I went back to the Hinkle site, which appears to be new because not all of their items were listed yet. But I did notice that they had added their ladderback chairs to their catalog. I was puzzled to see that the price was not $36, but $69. My heart sank. I knew we really couldn't afford to spend $600 on chairs right now.

So I contacted Blake, (the Hinkle representative that quoted me the $36 price) and asked him about the price difference. I just received an email back from him. He wrote "I think I quoted you the[b]wholesale price[/b]...." [size=9]([i]Oh drats!!!![/i]) [/size] [b]"...but will honor the price that was quoted." [/b] I'm just dumbfounded! I'm getting these chairs at half the cost - they are losing money - but they, or I should say Blake, gracefully honored his word. Wow, I just can't believe it. I would highly recommend this company and I plan on supporting them in the future if we need more chairs or rocking chairs or a porch swing.

I just placed my order - I'm so excited! Here are the simple chairs we are getting. It took a while for me decide between the rush seating and the wooden slats, but I finally decided on the slat seating because I think they will be easier to clean - food and drink spills will just fall right through the slats, plus Jeff really likes the style. ***Edit: We decided to go with the rush seats afterall...we don't have to worry about loose slats in the future....*** Here is the chair (imagine with rush seating):