Some say the dining room is dead — we say it has already been reincarnated. The key detail that makes today’s dining rooms up-to-date? A chic, savvy mix of chairs.Truth be told, the age of using one type of anything — fashion, bedroom furniture, tableware — feels so yesteryear. Assembling a mix — which in the dining room might include a bench or stools — adds spark to a room that was historically tradition-bound and off limits except for holiday meals and milestones. “I find that regardless of the style of a dining room, mixing the chairs adds personality and individuality to the traditionally formal and stoic dining room arrangement,” says designer Kristie Barnett, owner of The Decorologist in Nashville, Tenn. Where did the trend come from? Some, like Chicago designer Julia Buckingham, point to a less straight-laced approach in interiors. “I never show clients a matching set of chairs any more,” says Buckingham. Writer Laura Gaskill credits bloggers and homeowners posting their own room solutions online as a source of this undecorated look.
Others think it comes from having less space, which means a room can’t be reserved just for dinner. The dining room must work for all meals — and sometimes also be an office for adults and homework center for kids.Those demands make the case for less traditional seating. Chairs can come from traditional upscale furniture showrooms, flea markets, a family attic or eBay. Whatever the source, try these ideas to concoct a good mix:Two head chairs upholstered in the same fabric, mixed with different flanking side chairs Chairs in similar styles, but in different colors — a look that’s easy to achieve using classics that now come in a rainbow of happy hues. Josh Ingrime and Kristina Albaugh, co-owners of Hundred Mile in Rhinebeck, N.Y., like Carl Hansen & Son’s Hans Wegner Wishbone chair for this purpose. “It’s a matter of balancing functionality and creativity,” says Albaugh. “Especially in a smaller space, we try to utilize various types of chairs that are compatible so that they can be used in different areas of the home, say, perhaps, a desk chair that can double as extra seating at the dining table.”
Herman Miller’s Eames molded plastic side chairs offer the same flexibility. Lina Nordqvist’s Family Chairs offer a slight twist on this idea with different colors and varied takes on a Swedish stick-back chair, says architect Stephanie Horowitz of ZeroEnergy Design outside Boston.A complete mix of completely different types of seating. Sara Gilbert of Embrace My Space advises restricting the mix to three styles. “To use more may look like you’ve raided the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. You can pick up a set of chairs from a flea market that need some love, and paint them in coordinating shades,” she says. Others, like Matthew Lanphier of MJ Lanphier Interior Design in Los Angeles don’t limit the variety but pick chairs that each make an iconic statement. “It has to be strong enough to stand on its own. One could have great arms; one a curved back. When different guests with different personalities approach the table, they’ll go and sit in the chair that speaks to them,” he says.
Whatever your choice, once you’ve picked the seats you’ll offer, you can focus on the fun you’ll have around the table — which is what decorating is really about.Don't forget to choose chairs that are comfortable:•Pick seats that are firm enough for sitting yet comfortable, too.•Look for chairs that are tall enough, so they don't cut into people's backs.•Keep seat heights between 17 and 19 inches off the floor, so when people sit down they're not at terribly different heights.•Keep widths relatively similar, though end chairs may be bigger than side chairs.An Aeron would have been a pretty big expense for me fifteen years ago when I bought my first office chair. Just a few years later, though, and the price wouldn’t have been too big of a big deal. I should have bought one a decade ago. I’d have been sitting more comfortably the entire time, and in the long run it would have been less expensive than buying a new, cheap chair every few years. Not everyone finds the Aeron to be a comfortable chair.
Fortunately there are plenty of other good chairs to choose from. I’d definitely recommend spending some time sitting in them before you buy one, though. At some point when I was in school, probably shortly before starting high school, my parents bought me a wooden office chair like this one. I remember them saying they got it at a yard sale for five or ten bucks. I would guess that I started sitting in that chair sometime around 1990, and I continued to sit in that chair through most of high school. I don’t remember it being uncomfortable, but very little is uncomfortable when you’re still under 140 pounds. At some point that chair finally broke, and I upgraded to another wooden office chair, like this one. This one once belonged to my grandfather, and it is still at my parents’ house today. I replaced it with a random, cushioned, high back executive style chair at some point after I got out of high school, most likely sometime around 1997. Over the next decade or so I bet I bought a half dozen of these chairs, each for between $150 and $250.
They weren’t well made, and I often left them behind or gave them away when I moved. I finally convinced myself to buy an Aeron chair in the latter part of 2009. I ordered a used “Cobalt Classic,” fully adjustable model through a vendor on eBay for around $450 shipped. The chair was in pretty good shape, and the label said it was manufactured in 1997. The sides where the arms meet the chair were pretty scuffed up, presumably from twelve years of adjusting, and it was a bit squeaky when leaning back. About a year later, my father had a heart attack. I knew I’d be spending some time up there, so I drove the 900 miles up to my parents’ house with the Aeron in the back seat. I was up there for about two months, and in that time we ended up ordering another Aeron for my father, and I left my “Cobalt Blue” Aeron behind for my mother. Shortly before I left to return home I found another chair on eBay for myself. This one had the more common “Carbon Classic” color scheme, which is a black chair with a dark gray weave in the pellicle.
This one was “new”; I believe it was some sort of floor model or something, fully adjustable, and has the newer levered locking mechanisms on the arms. I have been visiting my parents again for the last six weeks or so, this time for back surgery. I am in my old bedroom, at my 20-year-old desk, sitting in that same “Cobalt Blue” Aeron chair. I’m not exactly sure why, but it no longer has a squeak when I lean back. I still miss the blue chair a bit. It was a very nice-looking chair; the “Carbon Classic” is pretty boring in comparison. I’m pretty certain it is the same color as Sheldon Cooper’s Aeron chair. I’m certain there are better chairs available now. I can’t say I’ve ever sat in any of them, though. The major selling point of the Aeron was the fact that I’d spent some time sitting in one in the past and I already knew I liked it. After that, the price and build quality of a used Aeron made a lot of sense. My “Carbon Classic” Aeron chair has been in my possession now for almost four years.