Mouse Nest Chair

When I was in North Carolina visiting my wonderful friend Lynda, I went to The Whistle Stop Antique Mall in Franklin, NC. It is an amazing store with every sort of antique you can imagine. I loved the antique wheelchair I saw, but I have no place to put it in my house. But what I did find was a beautiful antique rocker on springs. It is very low to sit in and sort of bounces on these very old springs. Lynda and I checked out the price and were amazed, $95.00. We couldn't believe it. We tried to find out why it was so cheap, we checked it over and over. We tipped it this way and that. We couldn't find a thing wrong. I made Lynda sit in it and I casually walked by to see how cute she looked in it. Then she did the same for me. Can you guess that we both looked cute?


We walked around the store and checked back on the chair. It still looked like it was meant for me. Lynda was going to drive down in her big Suburban and visit in a few weeks so all the stars were lining up for that chair to be mine. I thought of every possible reason not to purchase that rocker and frankly, no space, no need for an antique rocker, just didn't factor in high enough.


We bought the chair, loaded it up and headed back to her house.


My husband did the eye roll technique when he heard the news about the new chair. I got a few, "We need a new chair, why?" and "Where exactly are you going to put it?" And of course, "Are you ever really going to sit in it?" None of these questions seemed worthy of too much of a response.


Fast forward a few weeks and the chair arrives at my home in Florida. My husband gets it out of Lynda's car and "lugs" it into the house with several grunts to show me how much effort he is expending. I promptly sat down in it and start rocking. Yeah! It is so wonderful, but what is this dirt on the floor? I wipe it up thinking it was from Lynda's car. I sit down again and rock, wait more dirt and some leaves. Hmmmmm, this isn't looking quite right. We tip the chair a bit to see any foreign particles, nothing. I sit down again and more leaves and dirt. Something is definitely wrong.


We take the chair outside, pull back the fabric on the bottom and what do we see? You have probably guessed by now, I have not only a new chair, but a previous home to several mice.

I cleaned out the bottom, which is what you see here. I am sure I caught every imaginable mouse disease in the process. I was touching things with bare hands and inhaling who knows what! I was already way to far into the process before I fully understood that this was a mice hotel or apartment at some point, to take more precautions.

Here is the bottom finished. Sorry it is upside down. I don't have time to edit. I barely had time to fix the bottom of the chair.
Here is the finished project. I think it was worth it Mouse nest and all.