Deciding to Buy a Papasan Chair

Why a papasan chair?
I love my husband's taste; it is different from my own, yet he has an eye for beauty that I agree with.  So, when I asked my husband several years ago what his dream home would have, he gave me a list:  Alienware laptop, home theater, and a papasan chair.  I might sound like a broken record here, but I hadn't heard of a papasan chair before then.  I had to search for an image online to figure out what kind of high-tech. seating it was to be among the company of an Alienware laptop and home theater system.  This is one image I found, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Rattan meets Futon meets Fraternity meets Dog Bed?

If I were to describe my husband's style in a photograph it would be:

Void meets Gravity meets Electric Energy meets Elegant Chaos.

Something wasn't adding up for me.

When I asked him a while later why he wanted a papasan chair in particular, he said simply:  "I sat in one. It was extremely comfortable for me.  I'd like one."  He is often a man of a few verbal words, but if you were to read his writing, it reminds me of that Elegant Chaos above.  Dignified, precise, and divergent all at once.

Long story short, we bought a papasan chair because my husband had only 3 requirements for his dream home, and it was one of them.

What style did we decide to buy and from what retailer?
I couldn't find an online retailer that would ship a papasan chair frame to my home state, Hawai'i, where we currently reside.  The best solution we found was Pier 1 who could ship the item to one of their stores for pick-up.  I stepped into Pier 1 for the first time in my life to go papasan chair hunting with my husband.  I fell in love with that store!  If our current budget wasn't so tight-fisted right now, and if I wasn't brought up to want to DIY everything I can, I'd buy as many pieces as I could from that place!

After we walked around in awe for a good 20 minutes, my husband asked for an "outdoor papasan chair" and a, wait for it, BLACK indoor cushion.  The sales associate let us know that the black cushion would not do well outdoors, so I explained that the outdoor chair would be inside the apartment.  My husband is partial to metal over rattan, primarily because he felt it would be more sturdy and last longer.

When we came to pick up the chair 3 weeks later, it was a miracle and a labor of 15 minutes that we could fit it in my brother's four door Plymouth Neon.  My husband and I also went shopping for bedding and he picked out two pillows from a big box store to go with his papasan.  Here is what his choices amounted to:

We paid full retail price for this chair base, bowl, cushion, and pillows.  The chair base, bowl, and cushion with tax totaled $210.  The throw pillows were $12 for two, so this chair was a pricey $223, which puts a bit of a gash in our $500 living room furnishing budget.

Regardless of what I've read about papasan chairs since, like this Apartment Therapy article about whether it is Hot or Not?, this chair is the most comfortable chair I've ever lounged in.  It's even my daughter's favorite piece of furniture, dressed in my husband's style.

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