WFH – chair recommendations

Since COVID hit and we were all sent home to work I never really got round to sorting out a decent space to work. I’m sat at the dining room table for 4 days out of 5 and my back (and backside) and not appreciative of the hard chair I’m using. Anyone have a recommendation for an ergonomic chair that won’t look to out of place in the dining room, don’t need castors etc but adjustable height, good lumbar support etc would all be a massive improvement on what I have now.

Tell your employer you are having back problems due to your WFH setup, they should be able to do an occupational health assessment and provide a decent ergonomic chair.

I’m typing this while sitting on one that I obtained by doing the same thing myself.

The standard answer here is SecretLabs gaming chair but not sure it fills your “okay in a dining room” specifications.

Firstly, you must have a butt of steel to have gone this far on a presumably solid/dining chair!

Secondly, I know it’s not always practical when using a dining room scenario but standing and not sitting all day has been very good for me as far as back problems go. I find the chair less important as I can stand for at least part of the day.

As above, I got an electric raising desk for home (and office) and spend all day bobbing up and down. Soo much better and chair is much less important.

I just have a laptop and monitor when working, got  the smallest desk so doesn’t take much space if you can fit it in a corner somewhere.

Oh and surprisingly cheaper than a decent chair!

not sure it fills your “okay in a dining room” specifications.

There’s a lot of different trim options, they do a plain black one in faux leather and a plain black one in soft weave fabric, for example.

I think having a chair to sit working at all day that isn’t an office chair is a tricky brief. My work got me an Orangebox chair with loads of adjustments as I was struggling with my back. Might be a ‘being me’ with arms in black. Could you wheel something like that away into a corner when you aren’t working and bring it over to the table during work hours?

Thenother thing that’s great is standing up / sitting down. You can get things to put on a table that enable this – some are more heavy duty than others. The one work got me (ergotron work fit) is a big heavy beast but there are some much lighter duty ones – a quick google suggests the Yo Yo desklite or similar.

Not sure if it’s completely suitable for a dining room, but the Herman Miller Aeron is a design classic. Very spendy when new, but can be had second-hand for a reasonable amount (£500 or so). They are very comfortable & ergonomic, cool in summer due to the mesh fabric, well-built and very easy to service and find spares for if needed. The Herman Miller Mirra is also worth a look if you want something a little less costly (£350-ish). Yes, both sound very expensive – but it’s something you will be sitting in for several hours a day potentially for several years. It’s worth a few pence a day for a really good office chair. I speak from experience.

Another that is on a dining chair and table in the conservatory – fortunately only 1 or 2 days a week. Don’t mention the sit stand desk in the house that is full of the wife’s sewing shoot, and she’s not working at the moment….

Hinomi chair in the home office.  Thought I was being an arse following a SM referral,  but hellish comfy. Might not work as a chair round a dining table, but works as a WFH thing, and way cheaper than an Aeron

The standard answer here is SecretLabs gaming chair but not sure it fills your “okay in a dining room” specifications.

Came here to say exactly this.

Consider, it’s like buying a bed. If you’re working from home then you spend almost a third of your life in it.

I had chronic near-constant upper back/shoulder pain for like 20 years, it went away when I got a Secret Labs chair. To hell with aesthetics, it literally changed my life. I used to hang off a chin-up bar just to pull things back into shape, my neck cracked and crunched, on a good day it felt like someone had rammed a butter knife under the bottom of my shoulder blade. The least chronic pain I’d known was when I was rock climbing three times a week. New office chair, problem solved, I haven’t had so much as a twinge in 4 years. It cost a bomb and I’d pay twice over for it.

Can’t fault mine, near 2 years old now and still looks new…

The padding is quite firm, but it also means it shouldn’t collapse over time, and it’s very comfy once it’s set up right, which took me a few weeks of tweeking and changing things to get it just right.

It has a kind of racing car seat look, but its not restrictive at all, the seat and back is wide and more gently contoured than some.

I got a couple of chairs during lockdown as I’d had enough of dead legs from sitting at the dining room table all day. I ended up buying  one for my wife in the upstairs office (box) room and one for me in what was the dining room but now kids room/ other office. One was a Leather Vitra Eames ea117 which was ridiculously cheap, in surprisingly good condition (apart from the gas ram which is replaceable) and is amazingly comfortable, even used all day, for a chair designed in 1960. Tbh I’m a bit frightened to sit on it too much as it’s perfect for the dual purpose of looking nice in a classic bit of furniture way and being pretty functional as well and it would cost a lot to replace. The other was a vitra id mesh office chair which was cost me about £30 and is amazingly comfortable and not too fussy or over the top looking. I’d get another as they are soo comfy and are pretty understated. they would work in room that is a room used for other things than just an office if you know what I mean. There are some on eBay for under £200 in some office clearance company somewhere – google “vitra id mesh for sale” they’re decent chairs and looking for a home as folk are not using offices like they used to due to hybrid working etc.

I replaced a SecretLabs Titan with a Herman Miller Embody, mostly as the former was a bit firm – good in that it doesn’t get more uncomfortable the longer you sit in it as the foam compresses etc. but bad in that the starting point for comfort wasn’t that great. The Embody is definitely better, although not £1k better, not sure it’s dining-room friendly in terms of aesthetics (although it’s a fairly subdued look), the Aeron is probably a bit more normal/classic looking (although I’ve only sat in one briefly, seemed comfy though). The Embody is 25% off at the moment (although second-hand makes a lot of sense to), this is the one I have: https://ukstore.hermanmiller.com/products/embody-gaming-chair?variant=41742380368025

Dining Room aesthetics are going to be personal of course.  Classic Eames aluminium chairs as above (or one of the many good copies of them) are a lot better than a dining chair but they’re still more ‘conference room’ than ergonomic desk chair really.  A low back chair is almost certainly going to look a lot less out of place that a high back in a dining room.  Theres always going to be some trade off between appearance and ergonomics.

Herman Miller Cosm or Setu might be a good bet.  You can find both used.

I’ve got a mid back Cosm I prefer to the Aeron I had before and it’s definitely much better looking in a home.