Chair Design for Table Needed

[Scott Coffelt]

So awhile back I mentioned that I bought a new kitchen table, gasp, I know. Though I could have possibly made this, I think in the end the price I paid was fair... at $650. The center section is a lazy susan that can be flipped and has one side Wenge and the other stainless steel. Now I need to design some chairs to build. Any thoughts or suggestions. I have attached a couple that the SWMBO likes. We have 9 foot ceilings in this space, so I was thinking of something a little taller, also I prefer it to be more sleak in design. It is a kitchen so I need to balance function/comfort with design. We like modern style.

[Jamie Buxton]

Those are sleek chairs. They look like they're made with curved plywood for the back. I'd probably build them as bent lamination. Extending the back to make them taller should be easy. The rest is probably conventional construction, with a simple slip seat. I wouldn't paint them unless the client insisted.

Designing seating furniture is more difficult than most other kinds of furniture. Seating furniture generally has lots of non-90-degree angles and shapes, so drawings don't express it well. Seating furniture has to fit a wide variety of body shapes. I can design most kinds of furniture in my head and on the drawing board. For seating furniture, I do that, and then I make a prototype. I look at the prototype from all angles, sit in the chair, get other people to sit in the chair, and then maybe make another prototype. Sometimes I go through several prototyping cycles. If your design is going to take off from this commerical chair, you might consider buying one to serve as your starting point.