Re: Dining hall furniture
From: Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah (welcomeolympus.net)
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 10:57:46 -0700 (PDT)
We've had our dining furniture for ten years now, at RoseWind Cohousing in Port Townsend WA. Adequate, but not ideal.

The first table to fill is a donated oak dining table in the center of the room -- heavy and round, it is usually in a two-leaf oval. Matching chairs. It feels home-y. (Especially to me, who grew up with it in our family dining room.)

The rest of our tables are inexpensive, lightweight rectangular IKEA tables, with legs at the corners. Those tables easily can be moved, even stacked two high, or tipped on edge atop another table to become meeting easels! (masking tape holds the papers up). The legs can get loose, the edge banding can come unglued.

The IKEA tables are adequate, but not ideal. The ideal table, when I was researching it, was about 5 feet on a side, The width doesn't have to be much, just enough for condiments in the center. My daughter's boarding school had such tables, narrow and long, and it worked well. Ours take two chairs to a long side, but they sort of bonk legs.

Chairs are a challenge. Our biggest challenge is that we use the same chairs for meeting as for dining. Dining, one doesn't need much comfort: it's only half an hour or so. But meeting, or sitting for some sort of show, for several hours, most of the dining chairs are not comfortable. Add to that, that everyone has a different butt, and different-length legs. We got some easily stackable flexible birch chairs from IKEA, no arms. Also some black plastic "bucket" chairs we don't like: they are hard to stack, and don't look or feel very good. And some upholstered black chairs with arms that are the most comfortable, but a bit bulky at the dining table.

In short, I too would love to hear of the Perfect Common House Chair!

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
www.rosewind.org
Port Townsend WA. Where this Northwesterner is staying inside because it's too hot out, must be almost 80! Two homes for resale, @ $248K and $385K; photos on the web site.

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