I'm looking for one or two chairs for my new apartment. After living in a studio for 8 years, I will now have an actual living room. I don't have a lot of money to spend.
I like the Mitchell Gold Elliot chair and I like the Crate and Barrel Troy chair but I don't really like the wood detail on Elliot and the Troy chair has yucky almost-denim upholstery. It's a stretch for me to pay over $500 for a chair. Are there comfortable alternatives? Thanks! Robyn
For a chair this solid and full sized, it is very hard to find new for under $500. If Crate & Barrel sells theirs on sale for $499 then you know it is tough to find lower. Crate & Barrel has good prices. For a traditional chair like this we would recommend glueing yourself to Craigslist and looking at a number of thriftstores, and then spending money on reupholstering when you find your gem. MGR
LINKS
- All Good Questions
- All Thrift Stores
- Angel Street Thrift
- Housing Works
- Salvation Army
- All Upholsterers
Craigslist has a great tool, if you're techinically inclined -- the results of any keyword search can be turned into an RSS feed (the button's on the bottom right of the page). So if you're on a specific hunt, do the search and then add the feed to your reader. I get alerts on anything for sale in the east village, e.g.
Before RSS, I used to just set my search as my home page until I'd found what I was looking for.
Robyn:
If the fabric is the only deal-breaker on the C&B chair, I'm pretty sure most, if not all, of their furniture can be ordered in alternative fabrics in the stores that have the Furniture collections (sometimes for the same or only slightly higher price; it does, however add considerably to the wait time.)
Also check roomandboard.com,but not sure where they generally fall in relation to your pricing. And congrats on the "actual living room!"
A quick search of Room and Board yielded upholstered armchairs mostly in the $600-700 range, with the Zoe chair coming in at $549. It has similar boxy (in a good way!) lines to the samples you reference, but not sure you'll dig the legs...
http://www.roomandboard.com/rnb/coll.do?coll=RB3218&dept=RB159
If you want a quick fix, check out these chairs at urban outfitters. Don't get sucked in by their "barcelona" chair though, it looks cheap in person. The others are nice and sturdy though.
http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=3091&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=336&iSubCat=292&iProductID=3091
http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=5270&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=336&iSubCat=292&iProductID=5270
I had great luck at Schraeger Furniture. Great pieces and very fair prices. I don't think he has a web site but I found out about the store on Apartment Therapy back in June. It's on 21st Street between Fifth and Sixth.