Half of us believe an upholstered dining chair is the greatest investment you can make for your kitchen table. The rest think it’s a handheld cushion hybrid with legs, biding its time until someone dribbles lasagne down it. Both groups are armed with facts. They’ll both drive you mad.
The optimists will argue that four wooden chairs around your prettiest table turns a two-hour Christmas dinner into a stamina trial, but pick the right upholstered option and suddenly your least favourite relative’s granny is still there for a third coffee and a political debate at 9pm instead of making a polite excuse to leave. Bless. Comfort is influential, and can make people linger.
That can be good or bad.
The pessimists have a fake-leather dining chair from their student house they still remind everyone about (guilty) but remain steadfast against plush seating. ‘Let me tell you about the time my one-year-old tipped a glass of red wine over your favourite chair,’ they say.
We listen.
Grudgingly, maybe, but we’ve all been there. Oh wait, no. You haven’t. But we have.
The rest of us have a wine stain on the sofa that we haven’t been able to shift, despite googling every DIY cleaning solution known to mankind. You don’t actually argue with people about spillages.
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It’s the upholstery itself we can all agree on. Pick the wrong fabric and you’re basically punishing yourself. Velvet looks luxe until about September then begins to fuzz underneath everyone’s dripping elbows. God forbid you choose bouclé. It’s trendy as f*ck right now but also, fun fact, collects dog hair. Did you know that?
Someone bought that.
And then we bought six linen-blend chairs because we were told it was “machine washable” and haven’t sat in them since.
The point is: we all know someone who’s made these mistakes.
The only factual debate about upholstered chairs is their height in relation to your table. Too low and people get sloppy, ramming their elbows on the table because they’re technically sitting down. Too high and nobody can sit still, wheels of instability sending you crashing into your dining room cabinet at the slightest provocation. Ours fell backwards – we don’t like to speak about it.
We can all also agree that removable covers are the gift that keeps on giving. Saying that, half of us haven’t once taken ours off to wash – despite claiming this for three years on the jacket now.
The dining chair divide probably isn’t getting reunited any time soon. One side will continue to fight for comfort, and one will fight for practical fabric dinosaurs that scoff in the face of red wine. Save your advice. You’ll never convince them.
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