Residential clients buy chairs by appearance and discover their faults over years. Restaurants discover them in weeks. Working on hospitality projects has made us much more sceptical about furniture that photographs well.
The joint, not the shape
Nearly every dining chair fails at the seat-to-back-leg junction, because that joint takes the load of a person leaning back and rocking. We look for a mortise and tenon or a properly bolted corner block. A dowelled joint with glue will loosen, and once loose it cannot be tightened.
Seat height against table height
The number that matters is not the seat height, it is the difference between seat and table. 280 to 300mm works for almost everyone. A 460mm seat under a 760mm table is fine; the same seat under a 720mm table is not, and no amount of cushioning fixes it.
“Sit in it for twenty minutes. Not two.”
Arms, and where they go
An armchair at a dining table must pass under the apron. If it does not, guests sit 150mm further back than the design assumes and the whole covers calculation is wrong. We now check this with a physical sample against the actual table before any order goes out.
Repairability
We ask one question of every chair we specify: in five years, can a local workshop take this apart and reupholster it? If the answer is no, it is not a good chair, however it looks in the room.
Demo editorial — written for this build
