Lovely In Natural, Lovely In Color
By Christa TerrySince 1958, Ercol has been bending thick wood laminations to create the beautiful curves of their famous butterfly chair. Some people consider this chair a cousin of the Eames LCW Wood chair, but many other see it as existing in a class of its own.
I like to think it has its own charm – the beech and elm Ercol Butterfly Chairs are particularly striking with their extreme wood grain detailing on the backs. The vintage set above was sold by Love Vintage Furniture, which has so many great photos of mid-century modern furniture on its web site.
Then again, here are some more modern Ercol Butterfly Chairs, in dazzling special edition colors made for Tent London 2010. I would just go crazy for one for my daughter’s room, but in this point in her life she’d probably just chew off the finish.
Which Ercol Butterfly Chair do you like best? Au naturale or colorful?
November 8th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Au naturale. I love love love natural wood grain. My husband and I decided on the house we are currently calling home because all of the door trims and baseboards are stained wood, rather than painted, and the whole ground level floor is stained hardwood and there is a lovely faux fireplace and mantle that is stained hardwood. (House was built in 1942. It has a few issues, but the hardwood is lovely.)
One of my favorite wood chairs though is this:
http://www.vanbenten.com/browse/sledfootchair.htm
Which the butterfly chair sort of reminded of but I don’t know why, because they don’t look anything alike.
November 11th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
@marvel That is one interesting chair! Oddly, it reminds me of some of the crazy modern high chairs out there – like if it was just the right height, you could put a nice little tray on it or scoot it up to the table.
I actually thought about stripping our trims and baseboards, because they are wood and could be stained after stripping, but it just wouldn’t work with my decor as much as I love the look.