About David Shannon - Chair Caner

It All Started When…

My connection to chair caning goes back a generation.

My father, Coleman, was born in 1921 and served in the Pacific during World War II. But long before the war, while still a teenager in the 1930s, he caned chairs for hire for a furniture store here in Lexington, Kentucky.

Years after his death, I discovered something about him that I had never known. I found old classified advertisements in our local newspaper showing that he was still doing chair caning for hire during the 1950s.

So, I guess you could say chair caning is in my blood.

Growing up, I occasionally watched Dad recane our personal chairs when they needed redone. At the time, I certainly didn't imagine that one day I would be considered a Master Caner.

That changed around 1984.

I spotted a really nice, caned rocking chair at a yard sale. The chair itself was in good shape, but the caned seat was completely ripped out. I told my wife, Amy, that I was going to buy it, recane the seat, and see if we could sell it at our lamp store.

With Dad's help, I figured out what caning supplies I needed and ordered them. I recaned that old rocker and put it in our showroom for sale.

Eventually, the rocking chair sold.

But something much more important happened.

Our customers saw the chair.

Before long, people began asking, "Can you do one of my chairs?"

As it turned out, selling recaned chairs wasn't going to become the business. Recaning our customers' own chairs and furniture was.

That one damaged rocking chair from a yard sale started something I never could have anticipated. More than four decades later, chair caning has become an important part of my life's work.

More Than 6,300 Chairs Later…

What started with that one yard-sale rocking chair in 1984 turned into something I never expected.

Over the years, I continued to learn and expand the types of chair caning and woven-seat restoration I could offer. One chair led to another, one customer told another, and somewhere along the way I started keeping track.

Today, I have caned more than 6,300 chairs and other pieces of furniture.

Those chairs have come in just about every shape, size and condition imaginable. Some have been ordinary kitchen and dining chairs that simply needed to be made useful again. Others have been beautiful antiques, unusual family heirlooms, rocking chairs, porch furniture and pieces that have been passed down through several generations.

And that's one of the things I've come to appreciate most about this work: I'm rarely just repairing a chair.

Many times, the chair a customer brings through my door belonged to a parent or grandparent. Maybe it sat at their grandmother's kitchen table. Maybe it's the rocker where their mother held them as a child. Sometimes the chair itself isn't especially valuable in dollars, but to the person who owns it, it is irreplaceable.

I understand that.

When someone trusts me with a family piece, I try to treat it with the same care I would want someone to give one of my own.

Through the years, I've learned and worked with several different forms of chair caning and woven seating. While the materials and techniques may vary from chair to chair, much of the work is still done the old-fashioned way — by hand, one strand at a time.

I sometimes think back to that first rocking chair and to my dad helping me figure out what supplies I needed. I certainly didn't know then where it would lead.

Dad taught me enough to get me started.

More than 40 years and 6,300 chairs later, I'm still at it.

And I still enjoy seeing an old chair leave my shop ready to be used — and appreciated — for another generation.

I created this fictional photo of me in a warehouse with thousands of chairs, some finished and some needing to be done. This shows a fair look at what I have done over the years, after caning over 6,300 chairs.