Seating Sensation: A Guide to Choosing Chairs for Comfort and Style

When thinking of furnishing a room, chairs aren’t as high up as sofas, beds, wardrobes, drawers, TVs and many other pieces of furniture, though they play a pivotal role in ensuring you create adequate seating for a variety of purposes across different spaces in the home.

While many people think of chairs, be it dining or armchairs, as the final piece of the puzzle, we would always advise ensuring you consider a few things before committing to anything. In this article we will take you through the balance of comfort & style, making sure the needs of each chair is met both ergonomically and for durability, as well as ensuring you strike the right balance between quality and cost.

The Comfort-Style Equation

Some people say style over substance is key, others are the polar opposite, though in reality you lie somewhere in the middle. It’s often difficult, or very expensive, to have a chair that is perfectly styled to your taste and is as comfortable as can be. So you are going to need to make some trade-offs here.

Comfort is definitely important if the chairs are going to get extensive use, like our Gaming Racer Recliner perfect for playing 4 hours straight, or an armchair for late afternoon reading session, whilst the style here may be less important as it’s not in an area where you host guests.

Dining chairs however don’t need to be sat at for hours on end, and people often move from here to a more comfortable area later in the evening. So this is where you can switch on your style savvy eye and go for something a little more daring like our Andover Blue Velvet Dining Chair, whilst potentially forgoing some of the comfort in order to make it affordable and within budget.

This doesn’t mean the comfortable options aren’t stylish, and the stylish aren’t comfortable, it’s more to talk to the idea that in order to create the balance you need, within budget, you can decide when and where you can forgo certain aspects to maintain the right functionality for each seating option.

Ergonomics for Everyday Comfort

When it comes to comfort a lot of customers simply think of a cushioned seat that you sink into, but this is way too simplistic an approach to really understand the ergonomic value of any piece of furniture, especially one you may sit on for hours on end. We need to think deeper!

Literally - one of the most overlooked aspects of any chair is the depth of the seat, and they can vary a lot, as well as the needs of each individual. Someone who is 5ft 2in will need much less depth than a 6ft 3in person to find seats as comfortable, so make sure you get an understanding of who is likely to be using each chair.

Take a gaming chair - used by yourself during the day in the home office, but also by your teenager in the evening for their gaming. You’re 5ft 4in, they’re already 6ft 1in and still growing. In this case you may want something that is adjustable, both for seat depth, but also for back height, lumbar support, arm height and depth as well. There are many components here that make for a great seating experience. Consider them all, we promise it’s worth the time.

This is just one example, but do a similar exercise for your all seating, not just chairs, and if you’re also considering sofas then check out our Top 10 Tips for Choosing the Perfect Sofa.

Materials and Durability

Comfort vs. style is one battle. Another is materials vs durability. Often there is an exchange here where softer, more popular materials come at the expense of their durability, and vice versa. Metal legs are more durable, wooden legs are more natural. Velvet is soft but easily ruined, leather is durable but isn’t always most comfortable in the heat.

There is no hard and fast rule here, because everybody has different tastes and requirements, though it’s good to think about how each piece will be used today and into the future to understand what materials are best suited. Something getting extensive use is going to want a more durable fabric perhaps at the expense of it being your first choice, whereas getting 6 dining chairs for a family of 4, you may be able to get away with some middle ground as you can rotate the chair usage over time (and still have enough for hosting friends too).

Budget and Quality

This should maybe feature a bit higher up, though we believe it’s better to come to this after knowing everything else. You will of course have a budget in mind for what you want to spend, and this will allow you to immediately narrow down options. Though knowing now what levers you can pull above, you can make an informed decision of what you can let slide, and what is a must have in your list of requirements.

We always stress to all our customers - cheap doesn’t mean bad quality. Within ranges, quality is often very similar, it’s only once you start comparing a £2,500 armchair to a £179 that you see real differences in quality, and rightly so. But if like us you want great quality furniture without the hefty price tag, then you can rest assured all our seating options are a great choice.

Conclusion

Choosing the right seating for your home should now be a little less daunting, and we hope you’re a little clearer about what is important when it comes to the different types of seating you are looking for when shopping on our site.

With the best prices you can find online and thousands of excellent review behind us, you’re sure to find something on our site that ticks the box for you. So why wait any further and check out our range of seating today!