Our dining room chairs have forever been a bodged together collection of scavenged chairs that forever seem on the verge of collapse. Having spent a week living with IKEA IVAR chairs while on vacation, I ordered four while we were on our way home; they arrived Friday.

I wasn’t content to leave them entirely in their unfinished pine state, so Oliver and I went paint shopping at Home Depot yesterday. To my delight, I found that we could buy sample pots of paint for $5.00 each, and these proved more than enough paint for the job. The orange is “tart orange” and the blue is “beta fish,” both from Behr.

I painted two coats yesterday and am set to assemble everything this morning.

The IVAR chairs are $45.00 each; gone are the days of $150 delivery charges to Charlottetown from IKEA: delivery was $29 for four chairs, four chair pads (and, because IKEA, two towels).

We’ll move the sketchy chairs into the basement, ready should a time come when the world allows us a dinner party.