How to Choose Great Seating – Pretty vs Practical
The Pretty stuff….
When choosing seating, don’t limit yourself to chairs. There are a wide variety of options available for comfortable and interesting seating – low stools and high stools, ottomans, lounges, booths and benches, even bean bags are making a comeback.
The options for colour and materials are endless – timber, polypropylene, polycarbonate, aluminium, upholstered, transparent, bright colours, shiny or matt.
With so much to choose from – try short listing (Pinterest is great online tool for this). Get images from your supplier and create an Inspiration Board for your venue. Add your colour scheme and items that have inspired your vision. Then use our practical testing tips to find seating that gives you both function and form.
The Practical Stuff…
Be sure to sit in the chair. This is crucial. Here’s eight important tests to check your seating will be good looking and be functional.
- Bottom Test: Does your bottom fit on the seat. Narrow seat pads can be very uncomfortable for larger bottoms. And let’s face it, bottoms are getting larger!
- Lean Test: Try leaning back on the chair, even test leaning on one leg (try this one with someone close by in case the chair is not too strong – better to find out in the showroom than be dealing with a lawsuit from a customer!)
- Upside down test: turn your chair upside down. Good quality timber chairs will be double bolted and stacking chairs may have a stopper to avoid wear when stacked.
- Scratch patch test: good quality polypropylene chairs should be reasonably scratch resistant. Give the chair a good scratch with your fingernails – cheaper versions of coloured polypropylene chairs will have been painted rather than the dye incorporated in the plastic. The painted chairs will wear much more quickly and the paint will chip off in time – not a good look.
- Height test: if you are buying stools – check the height is 75cm. This is standard height for a Bar Area. For chairs seat height is usually 45cm if you have usual table height.
- Space test: measure chairs by placing the chair up against a wall and measure front to back from the wall. This will give you the true dimensions of the chair as often legs or backs will be angled, eating into precious dining and traffic space.
- Weight test: how heavy is it? Will your staff be able to move the furniture around easily?
- Stack test: try stacking the chairs. How high do they stack without leaning. Are the legs compromised by stacking? Are there any protective stoppers to avoid wear whilst stacking.
