Not giving up his throne

A chair that’s always been ready for business

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My husband is a professional furniture maker and a very good one. He has decades of experience restoring antiques and building custom pieces that are, frankly, nicer than some people deserve to sit on. He’s always loved Windsor chairs: the craftsmanship, the geometry, the way a well-made one can be both sturdy and graceful at once, like a ballerina in a bar fight.

So when he spotted a bargain Windsor on eBay, he bought it. It’s been in his shop ever since, twenty years now, alongside a meaningful collection of other noble orphans and questionable acquisitions. It feels less like a rogue purchase now and more like a relationship with that one oddball cousin.

From a few feet away, the chair is charming. Up close, it tells a story that’s definitely more bar fight than ballerina.

There’s a circular seam right in the center of the seat, the outline of a wooden plug. Flip the chair over, and you’ll find an outer ring of small prick marks and a big strategic void in the middle, the kind of hole designed not for structural integrity but for bodily inevitability.

This chair was a potty chair.

“I should’ve known,” my husband says, like a man admitting all over again he’d bought a toilet on eBay.

He gives me the lowdown, running his hands over each part. “These two stretchers aren’t original. The outer spindles are nicely turned. These ones in the middle are more robust colonial.”

I might’ve snorted. Robust colonial sounds like something you end up with after bad stew and twelve hours in a buckboard.

It’s worth noting that this chair isn’t some unsanitary oddity. It’s a marvel of early-modern ingenuity. Because when nature called in centuries past, you had few options. You could wing it in a field or hedgerow and hope the biting flies didn’t notice. You could trudge out to a drafty outhouse, where ventilation worked too well in winter and not well enough in summer, to make no mention of splinters or spiders. Some privies even had multiple seats. Colonial Williamsburg documents a five-holer, but they stole the idea from the ancients who set theirs in stone, above a running stream of water. All this suggests either a close-knit community or a very poorly timed chili supper.

At night, you’d use a chamber pot.

Guercino, Three Figures and a Chamber Pot, ca. 1620, Public domain

Eventually, someone had the sense to marry a couple of ideas. Enter the potty chair, the close stool, the thunderbox. Sounds like a 1980s metal band or a regrettable British cologne, not something you want associated with your lower GI tract. The setup was clever: a solid seat with a hidden pot, designed to offer comfort and the illusion of dignity.

That delicate balance of utility and aesthetic appeal hasn’t exactly gone away over the years. You may recall the story of a crapper caper that made headlines in 2019. Last month, two men were finally sentenced for making off with a toilet six years ago. But this was no ordinary john. The thieved throne was an 18K gold work of art titled America—a functioning sculpture by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan (of banana and duct tape fame)—which was displayed and put to use at the Guggenheim Museum.

At the time of the theft, it was on loan to Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill. The burglars ripped the thing from the floor in a five-minute operation, taking selfies along the way. Most believe it was melted down and sold, but some speculate it’s now installed in a billionaire’s powder room. Fun fact: The museum offered to loan this very toilet to the first Trump White House, in place of a requested Van Gogh. Counterintuitively, the offer was declined.

Our commode, of course, lacks the notoriety and the felony record, but my husband still talks about rescuing it. He muses about it the way other men plan to take up beekeeping or alphabetizing the garage. But at this point, I think we’re missing the more obvious opportunity.

We’re not getting any younger. And the idea of a well-crafted chair that spares us the 3 a.m. stumble to the bathroom is beginning to sound like the right kind of lifestyle pivot. Thunderbox chic? Why not?

The truth is, this thing is solid, thoughtfully made, impressively practical—and flush with possibility. All it needs now is a chamber pot and maybe a fresh coat of gold spray paint.

~Elizabeth

I hope this one gave you a laugh, or at least a new appreciation for the unsung heroes of household seating.

If it hit the mark, please pop in a like (💚), use the restack button (♻️), or send the along to someone who enjoys something with a questionable backstory. Paid subscriptions or one-time donations are always appreciated and help me keep this little creative enterprise chugging along. (Shoutout to Peter!)

Now I’m curious: Have you ever made a purchase that turned out to be something other than you bargained for? Something with that I’ve seen things vibe?

Drop your stories in the comments. I love hearing what’s hiding in other people’s closets!

*Cover image: School of Willem Wissing, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons