The Tyranny of Tables

The standard table height is wrong and makes many chairs uncomfortable.

In 1933, Bengt Akerblom asked a joiner in Sweden to build a chair to his specifications. The joiner refused to make the chair lower than the standard chair height. That's how ingrained these standards are.

Your dining chairs can be more comfortable without being redesigned. The problem is that the tables won’t allow it.

Almost every modern dining is 30" (760mm) tall. And almost every modern chair has a seat that is 18" (457mm) off the floor. That 12" of difference allows space for the tabletop, the table’s aprons (if it has any) and the sitter’s legs.

Here's the problem with those standards: an 18" seat is too dang high for many sitters. My mother-in-law is about 5'2" (157cm), and every modern chair leaves her feet dangling over the floor like a schoolgirl in an adult chair.

After 10 minutes or so, the chair becomes incredibly uncomfortable as the blood supply to her legs is cut off by the seat, which is compressing her thighs. In the 1990s, I made her a small 4" (100mm)-tall footstool fo…