Ever since I started selling stick chairs, potential customers have asked: “I like the look of your chairs, but are they comfortable?”
My canned response has been: “Compared to a La-Z-Boy, no. But compared to typical wooden chairs, yes, they are fairly comfortable.”
Last weekend I experienced a forced, painful and radical reassessment of my work.
For Thanksgiving, we went to St. Louis (city of my birth) to celebrate with my extended family. Because I lost my mom and dad recently, I’ve tried to strengthen ties to the family members still standing.
We stayed in an Airbnb downtown that was packed with factory-made Forest Chairs (what most people call Windsors). They looked nice and had some saddling to the seats. But after sitting in them for five minutes, I was in mortal agony. My back and my tailbone screamed in two-bone harmony. In my body’s defense, I added a pillow for lumbar support, which helped my back. But my poor coccyx might never be the same. It might not even be triangular anymore….
During the long weekend, I ended up sitting in a variety of factory-made hoop-back Forest Chairs. Each time, I was amazed at how awful they were. In fact, I think I stood during most of our four days out of town — just to avoid sitting in those chairs.
When I came home, I realized that I have been spoiled for a long time. The chairs I make and the chairs made by other woodworkers (Forest and stick chairs alike) are an entirely different universe compared to the factory-made stuff. For years I’ve been fretting over how comfortable my chairs are compared to those made by Peter Galbert and other chairmakers (and I always will fret). But I had forgotten just how low the bar is for comfort when it comes to wooden chairs.
So if you have been wondering how comfortable wooden chairs are that have been made with care by an individual, I have a new answer for you.
First, I’ll whip out my flattened coccyx (no, I won’t). Then I’ll say: For the love of corn — yes, they are far, far more comfortable.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Sales pitch: I cover in detail how I make my chairs comfortable in “The Stick Chair Book.” I don’t have any secrets (except the shape of my coccyx).
So funny and so true! I finished my first read of The Stick Chair Book last night and really appreciate all of the information it contains. I took a class a few years ago from Greg Pennington and really enjoyed it but have not had time for chairs on my own. This book gives me confidence to go for it, which I will do after building another Dutch Tool chest for my son. Thanks for a fine book.
Chris,
What would you say it is that makes the difference between factory and individually made wooden chairs, then, to make the former so much more uncomfortable? Is it something in the production process that would actually be (more) difficult to do in mass production, and so would get chucked out for negatively affecting the bottom line (pun intended), or rather that they just don’t care to get it sorted?
In other words, could the average factory made wooden chair be as comfortable as, say, one of yours, if only they bothered to figure out what’s needed and to tweak their production process accordingly?
Cheers,
Mattias
Hi Mattias,
I am certain that a factory could get it right, but they might have to raise their prices. And they would have to give a s&#t. The factory chairs I sat in had these problems:
I don’t think chair comfort is a black art. Building a chair that is decently comfortable isn’t terribly hard. But when you sell a dining room suite for $700 – a table with four Windsor chairs – your priorities are in a very different place.
Chris
I think La-z-boy chairs give an illusion of comfort but what they are actually doing is destroying your back. It removes the sitter from participation in the sitting I think.
I have a question about the staked chair in Anarchists design book and the Irishy Arm Chair in The Stick Chair Book. These don’t seem to rely on lumbar support. Are there advantages to lowering the backrest to hit the lumbar (as Brendan Gaffney does in his youtube presentation) versus having it hit the shoulders?
I ask because these are going to be the first two I pursue. Right now I am practicing some backstools styles to gain some experience with drilling the undercarriage. I am considering doing a backsplat with lumbar support for the Irishy arm chair.
Jeremy,
I prefer to add lumbar support when I can. But chairs can be comfortable without it. The Irish-y chairs in the book rely more on a radical backrest angle and seat slope to create comfort. The lowback in the book relies entirely on lumbar support for comfort (and little seat slope). There isn’t one answer.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Chris, that helps a lot. I was over complicating things. I am going to stick to the plans for the first go round then experiment later on.
Was there something in particular that made them uncomfortable?
Yup. See my reply to Mattias for a full explanation.
My numerous hand made Windsor chairs are the most comfortable I have ever sat in. Like anything else factory made vs hand made defies comparison. The attention we pay to style, construction and proportion makes all the difference.
I have sat in a genuine Kennedy chair (Hans Wegner PP503). It is factory made and remarkably comfortable, but not cheap.
For the price of a PP503 you can probably get yourself enough cheap factory-made forest/windsor chairs to outfit an entire restaurant. There’s no inherent conflict between comfort and factory production – Wegner paid a lot of attention to ergonomics, and Klaus did a post for this very blog about Åkerblom chairs, which were designed with ergonomics as a principal concern and were made in large quantities – https://blog.lostartpress.com/2021/09/09/swedish-science/ . It’s just when price point becomes the primary concern that things like geometry and a basic concern for human anatomy get tossed out the window.
I’m a beginner so was scared stiff last year when sitting in a beautiful stick back chair made from an apparently highly regarded furniture shop in New Jersey. It looked the part, but it was a torture device. I’m so fearful that any chair I make will suffer the same fate. I’m sure you’re book will offer great guidance. The book cover is saddled, right?
I took two of my cherry 4 spindle stick chairs to my brothers this last weekend for extra setting. everyone that sat in them loved them. Couple days later I had to give my sister-in-law one of my low seat Irsh stick chair that was painted with black over red chalk paint. Saddling and seat & back angle is what make it comfortable..The contry woodwright.
Are you saying that Peter Geller’s chairs are not comfortable? Or are you comparing your comfort with his comfort? Just wondering, since he’s one of your writers.
Peter’s are very comfortable. I think that’s clear from the sentence.
We had guests over for dinner last night, and after we finished our meal we moved over to the living room. There we have a big cushy couch, two recliners, and two Welsh Stick chairs that I made thanks to your writings and the books you published about them. So, and this happens every time we have people over, the couch and recliners get filled up and the stick chairs stay empty. After chatting for awhile, I gently invite my guests to try sitting in the stick chairs. Everybody’s reaction so far has been: Wow! this is so comfortable for a wood chair! Then we start talking about woodworking while they comfortably sit in the “wood chairs”.
One day, during a class at Lost Art Press, I skipped lunch to hang back and pare a couple of dovetails. With everyone else gone, Chris slipped out to work at one of the unoccupied benches. When I walked over to admire his chair, he invited me to try it out. I did. I thought it would be less comfortable than some of the padded things I have at home–and I was wrong. A cushion added to something approximating a chair is no rival for attentive design. Verisimilitude may be cheaper, but it cannot compensate for what’s not there.
My wife’s family owns an old cottage built in the late 1920s. It still has the original plank chairs which while well built are torture to sit in. Even with pads my wife and I can only sit down for a short meal.
I bought a couple of Akerblom chairs at auction after reading the post. These are made with padded seats and wicker backs which makes them very lightweight. My goal is to copy one this winter and make a set of chairs we can actually sit in.
So very true about the poor ergonomics in factory made Windsor chairs. I have one (factory made) that has been in our family for almost 100 years and I could never quite put my finger on what it was that made it less than comfortable to sit in, but your list of problems is spot on.
I am intrigued by the table that sits between the chairs shown in the photo. Can you tell me where I might find details about it?
Thanks, Will
It’s a breakfast table I built. My own design. Details here: https://blog.lostartpress.com/2021/07/22/breakfast-table-construction-details/
Chris, how many chairs did you make before you felt you got the ergonomics/comfort right? I assume the book (purchased, haven’t read it yet but have read ADB) is well help us mere mortals skip the firewood stage and build a comfy chair to start?
The ADB chair is quite comfortable. It’s even more comfortable with six sticks.
I think it took me about four chairs to get it right. But remember – I wasn’t working with plans. There were no plans! So I was guided by gut (literally). I think anyone’s first chair can be post-firewood-worthy.
Chris, you’ve built a lot of stick chairs in recent months and then sold them, all of different designs. Have you considered putting the plans for them into a package for sale, as an adjunct to the Stick Chair Book? Your description of the comfort of the chair you are auctioning sounds terrific. But all of the designs have been interesting. Your work probably belongs in the next edition of the Atlas of Furniture Design.
Thank you for sacrificing your shapely coccyx for this groundbreaking research.