If you need inspiration when in the market for dining room chairs, rent Mel Brook’s hysterical farce, Twelve Chairs. Although the chairs in his very funny movie concern the family jewels of a rich Russian aristocrat, you should do the best you can when it comes to the chairs your family will sit upon while enjoying your daily meals.
Chairs, like cars, need to be test-driven. According to interior designer, Van-Martin Rowe, “if it’s a bad chair, it’s a bad meal.” No one is suggesting that you eat the chairs instead of the food, but consider the chairs at your table as an integral part of the dining fare experience. According to Rowe, before buying a chair, one should lean forward in it, reaching and tilting back to insure its stability. “It also should,” he warns, “be able to slide under the table without worrying about amputating a finger.”
Chairs should be at least 18 inches deep in order to accommodate beams and wayward thighs. They should also be sixteen and one-half to seventeen and one-half inches off the floor so the average arm can reach easily across the table and the average foot can rest firmly on the floor. Consider armchairs or at least something other than conventional dining chairs. Think about the possibilities of office chairs, which swivel, tilt and perhaps even roll up and downstairs for a new and thrill-packed dining adventure.
Select bottom cushions, which can be flipped over as practical solutions to spills and mishaps. While you are at it, choose fabric that cleans easily and can camouflage inevitable spills. Consider dense prints and leather-like vinyls.
You might want to invest in slipcovers, although they do not provide the anxiety and excitement of wondering whether that stain will ever come out.
Whatever floats your boat is fine; only be careful that you don’t sink.
Have YOU any thoughts about dining room chairs? Is all this making you hungry? Please share.
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