For Sale: 2 Experimental Irish Chairs

This year I’m building a bunch of experimental chairs that have been lounging in my sketchbook and frontal lobes for too long. These are new forms for me – that’s what makes them experimental. (What’s not experimental is the work itself. These are made to the best of my ability.)

Both chairs incorporate a new finishing method in our shop: soot, dirt and oil. This finish makes a chair look like it’s broken in a bit. There is no effort to “age” a chair by beating it with chains or burying it in the dirt. Instead, I use natural and non-toxic pigments to shade and color the chairs so they will fit in with any environment.

Like many chairmakers who study old chairs, I am smitten with the glow they give off after years of use. My finish doesn’t replicate that effect. But it gives the chair a head start.

Each of these chairs is $1,500, a price that includes crating and shipping to anywhere in the lower 48 states. There are no additional charges. Details on purchasing the chairs is below. First, a little about the chairs.

Chapel Lane Chair

The Chapel Lane Armchair

The names I give my chairs aren’t romantic notions. I simply name the chair after the place I first saw it or measured it. This chair is named after an antique dealer that tagged it as Welsh. It might be Welsh. But it looks Irish to me.

The Chapel Lane chair is a low lounge chair. The seat is 15" off the floor and tilts back more than 6°. Like originals, the seat on this chair is a massive one-piece chunk of found wood. This chair is made from a piece of honey locust that was more than 3” thick when I started. The thick seat makes the chair bottom-heavy and firmly attached to the floor.

The rest of the chair is American elm, a tenacious and somewhat glowing species of wood that I love for building chairs. Like all my chairs, all the surfaces are finished with handplanes, spokeshaves and knives. The facets are left crisp. But there are no hard edges.

The through-tenons are left a bit proud and burnished back so they feel like the ones you’ll encounter on an old chair.

This chair has a generous seat that’s 22" wide. The arms are long and wide enough for a glass of whisky. The only odd bit about the chair is its center back stick. You can feel it when you sit on the chair without a sheepskin. I recommend a sheepskin, which will make the chair as comfortable as any in your house.

Like all my chairs, the joints are bound with animal glue (which is reversible should the chair ever need a repair). And the tenons are wedged with hickory. The topcoat is a soft wax we make here in our shop. It is 100 percent non-toxic.

Slane Irish Chair

The Slane Irish Armchair

I first encountered this form of Irish chair in a barn in Slane, Ireland (thank you Mark Jenkinson for the Guinness stew). It’s a remarkably compact and comfortable chair. Stout in its own way. And finished with soot, green pigment and oil.

The seat is 16" off the floor, and the chair offer a bit of a hug to the sitter. I’m 6'4" and 210 lbs. The chair suits me fine. But if you are a lot larger, you might find it a tight sit.

The chair’s seat is a single board of honey locust. The remainder of the chair is red elm.

The chair’s back has a nice tilt to the back sticks, so it’s comfortable as-is without any pads or skins. The two curved backrests cradle the sitter’s back, so the back sticks don’t enter the comfort equation.

All the wedged tenons are left a bit proud (maybe 1/16") and burnished with steel to remove any hard edges and polish them. This chair doesn’t look like an old chair. But it will soon.

As mentioned above, I assemble all my chairs with reversible protein glue and hickory wedges. These chairs are lightweight but stout. And they will be easy to repair in 100 years or so if your grandchildren abuse them or leave them out in the rain.

The finish is a green-black pigment that is covered with a low-sheen soft wax.

How to Buy These Chairs

It’s easy. Simply send an email to lapdrawing@lostartpress.com. In the subject line, please put “Chapel Lane Chair” if you want that chair, or “Slane Chair” if you want that one. The deadline for submitting an email is 3 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, February 17, 2026.

In your email, please include:

1. Your first and last name

2. Your street address (where you want the chair delivered)

3. Your phone number (this is for the trucking quote only)

We’re selling these chairs via a random drawing. If your name is selected, we will send you an email as soon as the drawing closes. As mentioned above, each chair is $1,500, which includes all crating and shipping fees. There are no hidden or additional charges.