I have in my studio the one non-office chair my son purchased. It is chair from Ikea. I was with him when he shopped for it. In the Ikea store they have this  same model of the chair in a plexiglass container along with a device that simulates a human sitting down and standing up over and over and over. I think he really wanted that whole contraption with the simulated human butt for his home but ended up with all that they would make available – the chair. The seat and back are covered in blue fabric and the arms and frame are wooden, curved in an arch that supports the seat and back. You can bounce slightly in the chair. One of my dogs prefers it to sleeping on the floor on the big dog pillow I have for them. I keep a towel in the seat because of the dog’s habit.
My son bought himself a bed frame too. The rest of his furniture was comprised of hand me downs. There were two futons that his dad and I purchased for him. I never found them comfortable for sitting or sleeping but there again his dogs seemed to like them.
There is something very adult about buying furniture. I remember the first purchase my husband and I made of two rattan swivel rockers. I wish I still had those chairs they were so comfortable, but I gave them away. I have given away a lot of furniture.
Furniture is intimate stuff. A lot of things happen there. Eating, reading, sleeping, relaxing and other things too intimate to mention here. Crumbs and fur get buried deep into the crevices, earrings disappear, jellybeans, tissues.
The back of the couch in our den is torn to bits from our two dogs who love to perch there. We bought leather but I did not realize the top part of each cushion along the back was vinyl. Dog claws applied with great enthusiasm as they use it to hurdle from den deck window to breakfast room window have damaged it. We have placed a quilt over the back but the dogs have decided they must remove it and dig into it to cuddle down to sleep.
There are scratches too on the window facing of the breakfast room window. My dogs stand with their feet against the window watching squirrels at the feeder. The den deck door is painted with nose prints.
We leave our mark too.
Perhaps not as indelibly on woodwork and floors as the marks dog claws make. But the marks are there all the same.
My sister once carved her initials into a wooden toilet seat in boredom and then tried to claim it was not her. I carved up a vinyl chair once when I was a child – the forbidden razor blade slid so smoothly through the vinyl.
There is a very uncomfortable wooden church pew on our patio. It was meant to keep church goers awake – sitting ramrod straight and hard against bony hip bones. I wonder who sat there and where their mind wandered.
My daughter bought her own mattress and bed frame. She has accepted many hand-me-downs too.
There is a point where you want to express your own taste and style. It comes with time if it is something you are interested in.
The chair in my studio resembles my son’s taste. Functional, comfortable, no frills – thin framed, light, portable and slightly laid back – like him. I feel it curve against my back as I sit here to write. I wish he had stayed around long enough to wear it out.