In today's world there are a lot of conveniences. One of them is being able to purchase almost everything, including dining room chairs, online. To make sure you have an enjoyable experience purchasing dining chairs online, make sure to do your research in advance so you know what you're getting before you make the purchase. The dining room chairs will be one of the first pieces of furniture that your guests will see and more importantly will be sitting in, so it is crucial to have a dining room that is both attractive in appearance and welcoming.

Leontuberman: I completely disagree with what you posted, and it is misleading to folks looking to learn about what makes a great windsor chair. While you offer a less expensive alternative to a correctly made bore and wedge Windsor, you do a disservice to the forum members by stating they are superior in construction which anyone in the trade or who knows furniture history clearly sees as incorrect. Your chairs are modern plank-seated, glue socket chairs. Let me tell you about what you make: 1) Because the chairs are not deeply scooped in the seats, you have to shorten the rear legs to keep people from sliding off the front of the chair. While it works for short period of times, that tends to cut off the circulation in the legs after a while and become uncomfortable. A properly made Windsor has a deeply scooped seat on a horizontal base plane. We won't even go into the strip-board construction of your seats. 2) Glue socket chairs rely on the glue bond to hold the leg in place. When the glue bond weakens with use and over time as they all do the chair becomes wobbly and must be disassembled and re-glued to prevent total chair failure. A bore and wedge design does not weaken the spindle, and in fact reinforces the joint so that on compression from sitting on the chair, it is not relying solely on a glue socket joint for structural rigidity. That is pure nonsense to suggest your chairs will outlast a correct bore and wedge design. 3) A comfortable chair does not become so by having steam-bent spindles that conform to the lumbar of the spine. What make a chair back comfortable is designing the chairs with give or spring in the back to allow them to flex slightly under use. That is accomplished by keeping the chair light, thin, and using woods that will flex without breaking in the bow section of the chair. 4) As to weight of the chairs...the lighter a chair is, the less likely it is to tear itself apart if knocked over or down steps. Weight is not an indicator of quality, and they become harder to move around as well. Every quality bore and wedge maker of American chairs offers a lifetime guarantee against them loosening up. Warren Chair Works, Lawrence Crouse, J.L. Treharn, D.R. Dimes, etc. Do you offer that on yours? The Windsor Chair design began in England in the late 1600's / early 1700s, where it was a heavy, somewhat ornate chair. Colonial Americans adapted the design and in the process lightened the chair considerably in form and they were the very first chair that was affordable by the common man, typically costing $ 5.00 apiece in their heyday of the mid to late 1700s. Most were made in New York City (which has three large chair making operations in 1780, each capable of outputting over 200 per week), but there were also large scale Windsor operation in Philadelphia and Boston as well. You can identify the origin of an period chair by looking at the styling clues which varied by region. Virtually every 18th Century chair was painted green, and to find a surviving antique in the original green paint today makes them very valuable. In the early 1800s, the trend was to pain them white, red, blue or yellow over the existing old green paint, and that chair is still very valuable as a antique today if it shows the old green as the base coat. There were no stained American Windsors, and any period chair that is shown in all-wood has been stripped and refinished at some point. The American Windsor is one of the finest chairs every made when done correctly and made authentically. In it is the history of the United States itself, and I take great pains to study the style and form. There is so much history OF America, about AMERICANS tied to the Windsor chair design that you should try to learn about it rather then just trying to sell it to listmembers. Among my customer list whom have purchased from my store over the years are: * The Smithsonian, Museum of American History * Mount Vernon, George Washingtons homestead. * Gunston Hall, George Masons homestead * Carlyle House, Old Town Alexandria * Gatsbys Tavern, Old Town Alexandria * The Pequot Indian Museum, Connecticut * Walkerton Tavern, Richmond, Virginia And many small Bed and Breakfasts, along with private individuals restoring old homes. To learn more about the correct form of the American Windsor, source these books (long out of print, but still the best work): SANTORE, CHARLES The Windsor Style In America Volumes I And II - The Definitive Pictoral Study Of The History And Regional Characteristics Of The Most Popular Furniture Form Of Eighteenth Century America 1730 1840 Read the books, then come back to me and lets talk about form and construction. - Duane Collie

Thanks everyone for the suggestions!! I think you've all made it easier for me to go with a more streamlined chair. Seeing your comments makes it a lot more clear why something simple works better despite the table being ornate. I feel pretty strongly that I shouldn't get more upholstered chairs. It feels like too many things going on. Plus from a practical standpoint, I don't think I want the added stress of worrying about dinner guests messing up the upholstery. (Part of the reason I went with the damask pattern is that I felt it hide small stains better). But as has been suggested, I think maybe the wooden chairs need some kind of cushion in a creamy fabric to tie in with the fabric and color schemes. So thanks so much. To answer the questions above: The room is already painted. The wall is woodland snow and the trim is bone white (both Ben Moore paints). I wanted to keep the paint scheme very calm (read: boring!) because so many other elements were going on. This is a old house that Ive spent the last 14 months gut renovating. I live in Brooklyn. If your curious about the renovation, I have a blog. (www.brooklynlimestone.blogspot.com) I haven't made much of a dent with the decorating yet but I'd love to hear any suggestions. Its pretty daunting but Im happy to nearly over with the construction part.

Windsor chairs are a classic form, and Nichols & Stone is a very good manufacturer, so kudos to you for finding and purchasing them! They are great for overflow seating in a casual dining room or a kitchen, and as Jan said, can be accent chairs in a living room, just not main seating pieces. Place one near a secretary, or have the two of them flank a console table.