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Design Details Debate: Ought Dining Chairs Have Handles on the Sides?

These chairs do. They're ugly but I bet they work well

By Rain Noe - December 9, 2019

in Furniture Design

Here's a ridiculous ritual: When you go to a fancy restaurant, and a server lurks behind you as you sit, trying to correctly time when to push your chair forward for you. I do this weird crouch and turn my head over my shoulder to indicate it's go-time. After I sit, I feel ridiculous that another human being helped me get there.

Image credit: Jay Wennington on Unsplash

When we're on our own, we belly up to the table by grabbing the sides of the chair and scooting. I never thought about how weird and inelegant this act is, until I saw this photo:

Image credit: Thoteman

That's clearly a DIY fix that doesn't integrate well into the design, but I'm guessing it's functionally perfect.

So, yea or nay: Ought all dining chairs be designed with this aspect of their use in mind? Surely there's an elegant, unobtrusive way to do this.

o

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Jo Mo

4 years ago

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Why is this article even on here?

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hans henderson

4 years ago

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A solution, in search of The Firstest of first world problems.

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Tim Rowledge

4 years ago

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To see what I actually meant in prior comments, look at https://www.flickr.com/photos/sammaloofwoodworker/9153345627/
Those aren’t armrests. You even have a picture of that chair in the4 sept “
Rethinking Chair Comfort” article. Sam wrote about the design in FineWoodworking several times.

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Jonathan Panichella

4 years ago

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Why not just grab the side rails of the seat? Those look like they'd force you to twist your wrist at an awkward angle to use them anyway.

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