Last week, we shared three of the first entries to our Every Home Is Made of Stories competition.
A chair that survived a flood. A chair that became somewhere to retreat when pain made sleep impossible. And a sofa around which a young family is beginning to make its memories.
Since then, we have kept reading.
And three more stories caught our attention.
Not because they are extraordinary pieces of furniture.
Because of the ordinary lives that have happened around them.
A SAFE PLACE TO COME HOME TO
B Harrison remembers walking into Darts Farm in Exeter and falling for a Tolstoy sofa.
That was more than a decade ago.
Since then, it has been used heavily, recovered by John Sankey, and moved from a traditional house into a new-build home.
But that isn't really why it matters.
She describes it as her “safe place to come home to when life throws curved balls at you.”
After the death of her husband, those words have acquired a different weight.
The sofa remains.
And now she hopes that one day her grandchildren will sit on it too.
Sometimes longevity isn't really about how long something lasts. It's about how much life it stays for.
THE LAST LOOK
When Wendy Tobitt moved into a tiny terraced cottage, she kept finding herself looking at the same John Sankey chair online.
Eventually, she bought it.
But her favourite part of the story happened when it arrived.
The gentleman delivering it carefully positioned the chair in its new home.
Then he walked towards the door.
Before leaving, he stopped.
Turned around.
Looked back at the chair.
And smiled.
Almost, Wendy thought, as though he were checking that it was where it belonged.
Then he left.
“One minute it was a piece of furniture being delivered. The next, it belonged there.”
Wendy Tobitt · Competition Entry
It is a very small moment.
Perhaps that is why we like it so much.
THE CENTRE OF THINGS
In Lee Tompkin's home, a buttoned herringbone ottoman sits in the middle of the family's Sankey suite.
And that is exactly where the story happens.
Feet go on it.
Books get left on it.
Occasionally, a game of Scrabble takes over.
There is no attempt to preserve it as something precious.
Quite the opposite.
It is used.
And perhaps that is one of the nicest things that can happen to something well made.
Furniture doesn't have to be the subject of a room to become part of its story.
Sometimes it simply needs to be there while everything else happens.
What happens afterwards
THREE PIECES. THREE DIFFERENT REASONS FOR REMEMBERING THEM.
One has stayed through loss and change.
One has a tiny moment attached to the day it arrived.
One sits quietly in the middle of ordinary family life.
None of those things could have been designed into them.
They happened afterwards.
And that is what we are beginning to realise this collection of stories is really recording.
Not simply the furniture John Sankey has made.
But what happened to it next?
Every Home Is Made of Stories
TELL US YOURS.
We are not looking for perfect rooms or professional photographs.
We want the detail only you would know.
One exceptional image. Two sentences. Your story.
Entries remain open throughout Season Three. After Issue 021, one story will receive £2,000 to spend on Rare Access.
