Living with a Lounge Chair

I bought my chair in a house clearance, from a woman who said it was too big for the flat she was moving to. She was right. It is too big for most rooms. I have loved it for three years.

The design itself is not a secret. The lounge-and-ottoman pairing by Charles and Ray Eames reached the market in 1956, and its profile, three curved shells of moulded plywood with a leather cushion, is endlessly reproduced. Mine is not an original, and I will not pretend it is. What I want to describe is what it is like to live beside the idea.

It wants space

A lounge chair is a piece of furniture with an opinion about the room. It does not like being pushed into a corner or lined up flush against a wall. It looks best with air around it: a good arm's length behind, a clear path in front, a window to its left or right so that the light falls across the shoulder.

If you have a small room, think about whether you want the chair to dominate it. In mine, it does, and I let it. The sofa is lower and plainer. The coffee table is a slab of ash. The chair sits at an angle, as if it had just been left that way by someone who had gone to make tea.

How it ages

Leather moves. A new cushion is stiff and a little shiny, and it takes six months to soften. After a year it carries a faint shape, the ghost of the person who sits there most. That's me, and also the cat.

Do not fight this. A good chair is allowed to look used. I clean the leather twice a year with a damp cloth and a soft conditioner, and I turn the cushions when I remember. I have not tried to remove a single scratch.

The plywood shells are the part to watch. Keep them out of strong direct sun, which will fade the veneer, and keep a coaster nearby. A ring from a hot mug is a kind of signature, but you may prefer to sign elsewhere.

The ottoman is not optional

People buy the chair and skip the footstool. Don't. The ottoman turns the chair from a seat into a place. With your feet up, the line from heel to shoulder becomes a single long curve, and it is only then that the proportions make sense.

It has a second use. When you are not sitting, it is a table. A book, a lamp, a glass of something. It is rarely empty.

What I would tell a buyer

Sit in a few before you decide. Reproductions vary a great deal in the angle of the back and the depth of the seat, and a chair that looks identical in a photograph can be a different thing in the body.

Set a budget and stick to it. Chairs like this are easy to overspend on, because they are beautiful and everybody tells you they are an investment. Buy it to sit in.

Next in the series, the room that was supposed to be the most modern in the house and ended up the one with the most opinions: the atomic-age kitchen.