For the nth time in as many years, I've recently been hunting for a new office chair for my home office setup. Unfortunately, every time I go for another round, the options seem to have gotten way worse than the previous round!
To put everything in context, here is my list of (seemingly impossible to satisfy in the current market) requirements:
a) I want something with an "executive chair" type high-back form factor with sufficient base + back padding
(i.e. It should be suitable for someone about 6 foot 1-2'' tall to comfortably sit/slump on it for hours (i.e. no sore back or butt, and head able to easily reach the headrest without having to lean/snap backwards to do so),
and also allow me to easily + freely sleep / recline on it via the "butterfly tilt" mechanism - where the whole L-shaped seat tilts back instead of just the back)
b) It should NOT be made out of fucking "PU Leather" (as I'd have the same problem again in 2-3 years, with yet more bulky trash to find a way to dispose of, along with having to deal with all the flaky mess in the meantime)
TBH, I don't care now whether it's real leather or fabric. But this fake plasticy leather alternative is definitely out (and I strongly urge you to avoid these too for ANY products you may be considering getting)
c) Needs to have a gas cylinder that would put the seat at at-least 50cm (and would have weight rating to sustain that, to not degrade over time).
It seems that pretty much all newer seats are NOT being made with suitable ones (either they are too low - i.e. usual situation; OR they are don't have their weigh capacity I'd like to have a safety margin on it failing and repeatedly sinking below a usable height)
Also, I'll get onto this later, but WHY is it that they don't make recliner chairs that sit MUCH higher off the ground?! (It is a serious mystery why so much of the world is built + designed for mystical MIDGETS! Gah!)
d) I want *long* padded armrests at decent/adjustable height + a headrest (suitably positioned high up and forward-facing) that I can easily reach it when leaning back for a nap
e) Does not give me back pain after sitting on it - either just a < 5 minutes trial, or after sitting on it doing work for a ~10 minutes
f) It should be built to last (i.e. should be able to take daily punishment for >= 10 years) vs failing in 2 years
g) For bonus points, it should come fully assembled (vs trying to mate bottom-back cushions and arm rests together... ugh! The last three I've build were physically-taxing *hell* on that front)
At least in my corner of the world, a chair matching ALL of these requirements does NOT exist on the market today. I know, as I've gone through the various shops trying all the ones they have on offer. (There were a few others seemingly matching a good subset of these that I've been interested in trying, but no one *ever* seems to have them on display - in a few cases, they actually left the showrooms like the day before I got there)
A bit of History / Context
After taking more abuse than normal back in June '24, my office chair started doing what every other piece of crap made out of the infernal "PU Leather" (i.e. "Polyurethane Leather", also known as "Vegan Leather"...). Much like "Vegan" crap in general, PU is absolute trash that promotes itself as somehow being a superior + holier solution, while in actuality is problem ridden due to all the fakery needed to pull it off.
Basically, for everyone not familiar with PU: It is a fake leather-looking material that's basically a plasticky coating sprayed onto fabric. As long as that plastic coating stays intact and in one complete immaculate skin, we're good. However, the problem is this crap breaks down with time:
It first cracks, then starts shedding *everywhere* into millions of tiny microplastic shards / fragments / flakes / etc. It gets everywhere. Some of those bits are stickier than others - with some with a particularly nasty clingy tendency where it sticks to whatever it touches - skin, other fabrics, etc.
* If you don't do anything with it, and keep it under really nice conditions, it will still start breaking down on its own in < 10 years.
* However, if you use it daily (i.e. headphones, chairs) for hours each day, expect it to last as little as 12-15 months
Thus it had been with the chair before my current one. That one had lasted about 2-3 years (replacing my original 13=15 year one that I'd only replaced as the gas lift started leaking hydraulic fluid + the arm rests *snapped* one day).
This second-gen chair was actually a nicer chair than number 3 too but not quite as good as 1. Oh, and the gas-lift from 2 is the one I kept using for 3, as the one from 3 was too short, causing knee pain).
Just before getting 3, I actually got another one from Target. Notably, was fabric upholstered, but did so because it was also a lot thinner. Too thin it turns out (i.e. I need a booster cushion for it, and even then that's not too good, otherwise my butt aches after < 1 hr), and also with a back that's too "straight" (i.e. need to basically dislocated my neck to touch the headrest to lean back on it). Also the gas lift on that one is too anemic to keep its height (and seems to now be permanently reduced/crippled), but I couldn't easily replace it as it's too thin to find a decent match for, and too hard to get out of the tilt/base mechanisms.
Alternative Options Considered
So the hunt for a replacement solution began.
My first "round" of attempts (actually, this was *multiple* rounds, spread over half a year) was to go out to the shops again (both standard retail AND specialty office-furniture suppliers), and check if there was any suitable option that I could just pick up and go with. So far, there hasn't really been anything that perfectly fits all the criteria (not even the one I currently have on backorder - more on this in a moment)
Hence, I tried to put into the motion a plan that I'd had for a few years (and for which I'd kept chair number 2 around, hoping that this could be done): I tried to get someone to reupholster my chairs to replace the bloody flaking PU Leather skins with either a harder wearing fabric (or maybe leather, though I was slightly going off that idea too, as I'm starting to find that fabric copes between with long hours of use, especially when heat + sweat build up).
Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my other post - of all the firms I contacted, only one said they could technically do it... but then it was clear they really couldn't be arsed to do it as they kept calling back with increased price estimates to try to put me off (but were not really willing to admit point blank that they were in fact declining the job outright)! Argh!!! I really hate it when people (especially tradepeople / craftsmen) do that!
So it was, that I was back at square one.
And that is how, on the spur of the moment, I tried one of those "leather recliner chairs with a footstool". Usually I wouldn't bother, as those things are always way too low (i.e. for unknown reasons, they seem hellbent on building them so that they almost barely touch the floor). But by this point I was desperate, and was like - "For crying out loud... can anyone at least make a decent padded high back chair?!"
"Viking" Recliner in Harvey Norman
Well, this chair was quite a revelation (after an afternoon of trying *lots* of very uncomfortable chairs). The bones of it just felt right... if you ignore the fact that the set sat too low / close to the ground. TBH, if I could just get one of these with the stand height extended to put the seat cushion at no lower than 50cm + wheels on those legs, that would be perfect! (I didn't manage the check the recline function, so maybe it's tilting mechanism isn't quite what I want... But at least, for general sitting on, this was WAY better)
Hence, I began looking into whether there are any options out there for this kind of recliner, but in office-chair form. Te one I have on backorder is one of these. It's far from perfect (i.e. I had trouble with trying to make the height adjust lever to budge at all without feeling like I'd break it, and the arm-rests are TBH way lower than I'd like (though I expect I can solve that with some strap-on "rectangular box cushions" - fingers crossed)), so I'll have to see how it goes when it finally gets here. Fingers crossed it works (when it gets here)!
(The other problem is that since these - both my new one, and the one pictured above - come from Norway, it's quite a long wait to get hold of these types of chairs here)
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