A chair is the most intimate piece of furniture most of us own. It holds our weight for hours every day, remembers our posture and wears the marks of our habits. It is also, in an age of flat-packed and fast-shipped furniture, one of the objects most likely to be thrown away within a decade. The alternative is not complicated, but it requires patience and a little knowledge. What follows is a guide to finding seating that will outlast you, drawn from years of sitting, measuring and occasionally breaking chairs.
Start with the joints. The single most reliable indicator of a chair's longevity is how its parts are connected. Look for mortise-and-tenon or dowelled joints, ideally glued and pinned, rather than metal brackets or screws driven into end grain. Turn the chair over. A well-made piece is as carefully finished underneath as on top, because its maker expected someone to look. Gently rock it from side to side. There should be no movement at all, and no creak, which is the sound of a joint beginning to fail.
Next, consider the material. Solid hardwoods such as oak, ash, walnut and cherry age beautifully, and they can be repaired, refinished and rejoined many times over. Veneers and particleboard cannot. Steel-framed chairs can last indefinitely if the welds are clean, but check for corrosion where the frame meets the floor. Upholstery is the weak point in any chair, so favour designs where the seat can be rewebbed or recovered by a local upholsterer, rather than sealed shells that must be discarded when the fabric wears.
Where to look
Vintage remains the richest hunting ground, and it is still possible to find mid-century Scandinavian and Central European chairs at reasonable prices if you avoid the most famous designs. Auctions in provincial towns, estate sales and the back rooms of restoration workshops are more rewarding than online marketplaces, where prices are inflated by algorithms. Buy what has survived: a chair that has already lasted sixty years has proved its construction. Worn finishes can be restored; a cracked leg or a twisted frame usually cannot.
For new pieces, look to the independent makers reviving traditional methods. In Copenhagen, the workshop Holm and Sund builds a single ash dining chair, steam-bent and hand-woven with paper cord, in batches of thirty. In the Welsh borders, the chairmaker Ffion Aldermoor works entirely with green oak split from local trees. These chairs are expensive, often costing ten times the price of a mass-produced equivalent, but divided across a century of use they are among the best bargains in design.
A good chair should be boring to sit in. You should forget it is there, for about eighty years.
That is the verdict of Aldermoor, who argues that the most durable chairs are rarely the most dramatic. Sculptural statement seating tends to date quickly, both in style and in comfort. The chairs that endure are generally modest in form, generous in proportion and honest about how they are made. Sit before you buy, and sit for longer than feels polite. Pay attention to the height of the seat, the angle of the back and whether your feet rest flat on the floor.
Finally, care for what you own. Keep wooden chairs away from radiators and direct sun, which dry and crack the timber. Tighten nothing with force, and resist the urge to glue a loose joint yourself; a restorer can do it properly for less than you think. Wax the wood once a year. Above all, use the chair every day. Furniture that is sat in, moved and lived with ages better than furniture that is protected, because it is part of a life rather than a museum.
