Easy to sit on (and to look at) Dining chairs don’t just have to look good, they should feel good when you sit on them, too. There's a choice of styles and we’ve designed them to match our tables if you want to coordinate your dining area.Time to refresh your dining chairs? Our selection of ten should have something to suit all tastes. 1. Pocket folding chair: £45, John Lewis Folding chairs are great for dealing with unexpected guests, or for kitchens and dining rooms where space is tight. This aluminium and plastic one from John Lewis is discreet enough to fit in with other furniture when the occasion calls, yet robust enough for everyday use too. Hester owes its look to the classic metal-and-ply school chair; with a range of bright colours that add to its playful feel. It’s great for those who love the idea of reclaimed furniture but not the hours of restoration involved. It’s stackable too, making storage a breeze. The elegance of the Copenhague chair comes down to its symmetrical frame (which allows it to stack) and its simple treatment of material.
There’s a range of finishes that all enhance its natural wood grain – but it also comes in an upholstered version for extra comfort. 4. Ercol for John Lewis Chiltern chair: £199, John Lewis British manufacturer Ercol remains a master of furniture making. The twists of the oak and beech Chiltern chair for John Lewis show the incredible craftsmanship of the heritage brand, as well as an ability to offer something for the contemporary customer. Ideal for light and airy eat-in kitchens, Ikea’s transparent Tobias chair is modern and simple. The seat shell flexes comfortably as you move, and is supported on a continuous leg of chrome-plated metal. 6. Kartell Masters chair: £124.10, Amazon For a chair with some wow factor, look no further than Philippe Starck’s Masters chair for Kartell. Its striking fluid shape was designed to combine the outlines of three iconic chairs, but it’s now become something of an icon itself. 7. Blonde Rattan dining chair: £165, Rockett St George
Rattan is due for a big comeback this year, with many designers finding modern ways to work with the natural material. Rockett St George’s chair contrasts a minimal form with the familiar texture of blonde rattan. 8. Dinton Coral chairs: £175 for two, Marks and Spencer This solid birch pair of dining chairs from Marks and Spencer are fairly traditional in form but can be endlessly updated with a lick of paint. They currently come in a choice of three colours; white, stone, or bang-on-trend coral. 9. Eames DSR side chair: £190, Heal's It’s the 1950s classic that shows no sign of fading. If you haven’t clocked it already in interiors magazines, on design blogs, or even at the Barbican’s exhibition The World of Charles and Ray Eames, you’ll soon be noticing how ubiquitous this much-loved moulded plastic chair really is. 10. John Vogel chair: from £149.95, West Elm By South African designer John Vogel, this chair pairs a solid wood frame with a hand-woven jute seat.
The range of colours have been carefully combined to keep it feeling fresh and modern, including almond, oregano and white. If it’s practicality and ease of storage you’re after, Habitat’s stacking Hester chair or John Lewis’ foldable Pocket chair are good value options that will prove ever useful to have around the house. For comfort and durability, nothing beats a real wood dining chair like HAY’s Copenhague or the Chiltern chair by Ercol.Ikea biffed by going after IkeaHackers, the fan site that shares all kinds of new uses and smart mods for the Swedish superstore's affordable furniture—seriously, you can't buy this kind of devotion. Until founder Jules Yap sets up shop under a new name, let's have a look at a few of the projects that make her site so endlessly scrollable. There's such a range of finished works—from "Oh oh I could do that!" to "Why would you do that?!" to "Hey now that gives me an idea..."—that it's tough not to fall into a DIY-design clickhole.
Here are some of the adventures-in-how-to that stood out to us. Share your own personal faves below! There's no end to what you can to with an Expedit (RIP). This awesome hamster habitat won the Hack of the Year in 2010, and it's easy to see why: Some small modifications to the Expedit—plus a little glass—turned Ikea's beloved shelving system into a home for a furry friend. You'd never guess that this sleek, sinuous privacy screen—which turns the bathroom of an open loft into its own space—was made from $2 Rektangel vases. But yep: Hundreds of these glass thangs were tipped on their sides and repurposed. There's a reason this incredible personal library won the 2011 Hack of the Year. It's made from 60—yes, 60—Billy bookshelves, Ikea's bargain basement bookshelf. Attached to the French country home of Chas Saunter, they look undeniably classy. Here's the archetypal example of IkeaHacking brilliance. Take one stool, four nested file organizers, and boom: A transformable table with tons of storage space for under $10.
All you have to do is glue the folders together and attach them to the stool. For an added bonus, the nested folders inside the table pull out to change its profile. Things really get cool when an Ikea hacker has soldering skills: This brilliant hacker turned a plain old wood table top into a beautiful working guitar. Now this is unexpected. Tracing around an old kid's jacket will give a decent enough pattern for this cute little coat. Lined or unlined, it's pretty ingenious—though apparently it will dull the hell out of your sewing machine needle. I'm wondering whether to try to make one for myself... Here's a solution for all those space-challenged Ikea hackers out there (and aren't there so many!). This Dutch hacker took a shelf and a cabinet and mounted them to the wall, creating what might be the skinniest desk for an iMac ever built. The best part might be the fact that there aren't any errant cables hanging around: They're all stored inside the upper cabinet. Okay, this is admittedly not for everyone, but it's a smart solution!
An industrious family member made this for her grandma's home in Malacca, Malaysia, which is lacking upstairs plumbing. Adding a raised section to the top and a few privacy panels between the legs of a Stefan chair, a small bowl can easily slide in to the hole. Noted: next time she's choosing a model with arms, for extra comfort (though it would be tough to beat Homer's Lazy Man Toilet Seat for sheer sit-back-and-relax luxury). This was designed to allow or opening the drawers under a Mandal bed, but relocating two of the Frosta stool's legs looks like it would make a killer sofa table, too (as long as the height was right). There are a lot of storage beds on IkeaHackers, but there's something about the structure and staging of this one, which used nine Faktum cabinets, that makes it look particularly perfect for a small space. It's involved (with extended blog post how-to here), but if you had the tools and the time and the drive—it would be incredible to make something this functional look this good.
This is another project that's going to require some power tools, but if you're keen on sewing and have the room for a dedicated place to stitch, this is a might purdy use of an Ingo table. Additional tutorial here, if you're into it. Okay, hey—we're back to unconventional spots to pee and poo. The name here really says it all, and all it took was a long piece of MDF, a pair of Ikea PS Lockers, and a cat flap inserted into a custom cut-out in the side. Slide a litter box in the drawer and you're good to go.This effect was made pretty much exclusively out of Trofast toy storage boxes affixed to the walls and ceiling: some facing out and filled with magazines and books, some facing the other way and lit from within by LEDs. Ikea's iconic Frosta stool is a cult favorite—and here, it's turned into a beautifully abstract bookshelf that seems to climb up the wall like a vine. Rather than spring for some spendy backsplash, this cool kitchen has a series of Rationell glass panels installed flush up against the wall between counter and cabinet.