How can you tell a good quality dining chair?

Picking out the perfect combination of dining room chairs for your dining room table is no easy feat. Between the different sizes, styles, materials, colors, and stains, you have a lot to choose from. When it comes to buying a new set of dining room chairs to match a dining room table you already own, how do you know what to choose? In this blog post, we’ll help you make the right decision so your space looks perfect.

How to Pick the Perfect Chairs For a Dining Room Table

The first thing you need to do is decide what type of look you’re going for with your dining set. Do you want to have a farmhouse feel? What about an industrial or rustic look? Do you want to have a specific color palette in your dining room? These decisions will help you be a step ahead when it comes to choosing the right dining chairs. Other than that, the following are some tips to help you choose the best chairs for your table.

Choose the Material of Your Chairs

The style you are going for in your dining room will dictate the materials you should use for your chairs. If you would like to have an industrial look, metal chairs are your best option. On the other hand, if you would like a farmhouse feel, thick, wood chairs will be a great choice.

Here are some common materials for dining room chairs:

• Woods such as alder, walnut, or maple
• Metal such as iron, aluminum, or stainless steel
• Cotton-stuffed fabric such as burlap, leather, or cotton
• Hard plastic materials like polypropylene or polyvinyl chloride

Each of these materials can completely change the feel of your dining room. So, choose the one that suits the style you’re going for best.

Choose the Right Tone and Color For Your Chairs

Another factor that changes the look of your dining room is the tone and color of the chairs. You can choose a chair with a bright color like yellow or blue to make a big statement. Or, you can choose a stain that matches your wood dining table. You can also choose a chair in a stain that compliments the color of your table, such as in the image below. No matter what you do, make sure the pieces all match each other well. But, don’t be afraid to have some fun with your chairs and use them to make a statement in your space.

Choose the Right Size of Chairs

Have you ever sat at a table with chairs that are either too small or too large for the space? If you haven’t, it’s not a comfortable feeling. You either feel too crowded or feel like a child in a huge seat. So, when choosing chairs for your dining room set, you need to pay attention to the size. There are so many sizes of dining chairs to choose from. For your table, you may have a four-seater or you may have one as large as an eight-seater. Or, you may want to have an oversized look for your table, so you want large chairs for your dining room set. To see how each size will look with your specific table, it’s best to put tape on the floor. See if you think it would feel crowded or if there would be too much space with a particular chair width. In general, it’s best for your guests to have about 32 inches of space each to allow for a comfortable eating area and elbow room.

Another consideration is the height of the chairs. You need to make sure your family can be seated at your table without their legs touching it. Also, make sure someone can cross their legs comfortably with the chair’s height. On the other hand, you don’t want your chairs to be too low to where it’s uncomfortable to eat at the table. It’s best to have at least seven inches of space for legs under your table. If your table has an apron, which is the wedge under your table, then you should start the seven inches from there. Additionally, if you are buying chairs with arms, those need to fit under the table, unless you don’t mind the chairs sticking out a bit.

Consider What Type of Chair You Want

The type of dining room chairs you should choose depends on the type of dining room table you have. For example, if you have a round dining table, you may want to consider a chair with a rounded back. On the other hand, if you want to fit several people at one table, consider buying a bench, such as the one above. If you have a long, rectangular table, you can choose chairs with a sturdy base. Lastly, if you have a taller table, you can opt for stools to mimic a bar-like feel. When picking a chair type for your table, keep in mind the look and comfortability of the chair, as well as how well it will match your table’s style.

Shop Our Seating Options

At Unruh Furniture, we sell several seating options for your dining room. We allow you to choose your wood, stain, and height of your chair, stool, or bench. No matter the type of table you have, we can make a seating option that suits your table and the look you’re going for.

Lately, I’ve been doing some digging around the web and have noticed one question that has come up time and time again. That question is: How can you tell if its a quality piece of furniture?

People can’t seem to tell the difference from the good to the crap. It’s a problem when the cheap imitation stuff looks and feels like a quality piece but over time proves that to be wrong. Here is a few things on how you can weed out the bad from the good.

1. How is it made?

The quickest and easiest way to tell the difference is how it is made. Most modern furniture is assembled using veneer. Veneer wood is a flimsy material only being 3 mm (1/8 inch) thick. Veneer is obtained either by “peeling” the trunk of a tree or by slicing large rectangular blocks of wood known as flitches. The appearance of the grain and figure in wood comes from slicing through the growth rings of a tree and depends upon the angle at which the wood is sliced.

Most quality pieces, at least wooden pieces, are 1 inch thick. This makes the piece much more durable. You want your furniture to be a solid piece. If it flimsy and created from cheaper material, you’re going to get exactly what you’ve paid for.

2. The way it is constructed

On wooden furniture, a good place to tell the quality of construction would be the joints. Good quality furniture will have joints that are screwed, or doweled.  The very best joints are dovetailed, mortise-and tenon.  Re-enforcing block attached at an angle should be used on corners. Indications of poor quality would be joints that are nailed, stapled, or will have visible glue.

The problems of having the furniture assembled by means of being nailed or stapled is that it can easily come apart. Staples will come apart over time do to extensive use.

3. Does it wobble?

Quality pieces will be leveled with the floor. Poor pieces of furniture will wobble on any floor. Your solid hardwood furniture will for the most part always be leveled with the floor. They are very stable and the only way to get them to shake is if it was in an earthquake. If the piece does wobble, this is usually a tell-tale sign that the floor is not leveled. This is actually the case with our showroom.

4. The type of finishing being used

This one is important especially when it comes to tables. Wood on a good quality furniture piece should be reasonably scratch resistant, if it dents easily the furniture will not stand up to much use. To test this, you can try drawing a line on an unexposed area with your fingernail to see if it leaves a visible dent.

On our furniture for example, we use a standard catalyzed varnish. The finish gives you the freedom not needing to baby your furniture. You’re able to place a sweaty place of water on it and not worry about water marks or even place a boiling pot of water on it and let it go to room temperature.

5. What type of fabric is used

It can be more difficult to tell quality upholstered furniture, because its frame is often concealed by fabric. Here is what you can do though, when you go to a retail location the sales person should be able to tell you all the information about the product right away. If they can not easily provide this information, or they hesitate do not buy from them, move on to another location.  The sales person should have good product knowledge. They should be able to provide some sort of information to you regarding the piece.

Find out what the density of the foam is. Upholstered furniture should have a seat foam density rating of at least 1.8 pounds or higher.  If the chair or sofa has removable seat cushions, unzip them and take a look inside.  The foam block should be wrapped in fiber.  Very high end ones will probably have a protective inner cover.  Removable back cushions could be made of foam, but will probably be loose fill.  Loose fill cushions should have multiple internal compartments.  These internal compartments stop the fill from settling.

6. Does it use the same material on all of it?

Look at the underside of the piece. Does it look like the same wood to you as on top? If not, then most probably it is veneered. In solid wood pieces, the wood will look the same in both visible and hidden parts (or almost the same as the better part of a board is usually turned out). The underside will most likely be some type of plywood or veneered wood.

7. The value of the furniture

Furniture made completely from solid wood is more expensive than furniture made from a combination of veneers and solid wood. This stands to reason since more high-quality lumber is needed. Veneer crafted furniture loses it’s value over time dramatically as it won’t stand the test of time compared to solid hardwoods. Solid hardwood retains its value much longer since it is built to last for generations.

8. How heavy is it?

There is a belief that solid wood furniture is generally heavier than particle board or MDF (medium density fiberboard) furniture. Yes and no. First of all there are a lot of types of wood which are light in weight such as pine or cherry. Besides, the more glue there is in an MDF or particle board piece the heavier it is. So such furniture can be quite weighty.

But there is a twist! For casegoods, heavier does NOT mean it is better quality. Beginning in the 1980′s and especially since the early 2000′s, there has been an explosion of cheap mass-produced furniture made from MDF (medium density fiberboard) covered with a wood veneer. MDF is heavier than wood – even hardwoods. So all those modern casegoods that weigh a ton? Yep, you guessed it. It’s a pretty good clue that they are made from MDF, not wood. Because MDF is easier to damage, it just won’t last like real wood does.

9. Look at the curves

Chair backs, table skirts, arms, legs and other curved furniture parts are tell-tale signs of quality. If a part is a single piece of solid wood that has been steam bent, it will last longer and look more graceful than pieces fashioned from thin strips of laminated wood. Check for bulges or wrinkles along the inside corner of a bend, as this indicates that the internal fibers of the wood have buckled during the bending process. Cracks along the outer edge indicate that wood fibers have been stretched which will also weaken the part.

10. Does it have a uniform look?

This is a great way to tell if it manufactured or not. Since veneer wood is a combination of different woods, it is crafted to have a uniform look to it. Solid hardwoods are made from just that, a solid hardwood. Solid hardwood furniture pieces show the imperfection of the wood because it is a product of nature.

Veneer is a man-made, manufactured wood to remove those imperfections and give the furniture a unified look. Some like the imperfections of the wood and some don’t.

There are a lot of benefits of owning a real solid wood furniture. It gives you the confidence that you won’t have to replace your furniture for many years. And even if you decide to sell it the presence of solid wood in your items will give them a great selling power. Enjoy peace of mind with your solid wood furniture.