A box seat dining chair is the best. Leather or expensive tapestries are the best coverings. Hand made rush seats are good also, but when they begin to break they are liable to tear the clothing. Tacked-on leather seats are not as expensive or as attractive as the slip-leather seat, but are very serviceable. The cane seats are very good but not as popular as in the past. The flat wood and cobbler seats are in the lower classes. The saddle wood seat is very popular in the medium grade of chairs and gets its name from its saddle-like appearance.

Dining chairs are usually sold in sets of six. A set of box seat chairs, however, usually contains five straight chairs and an arm chair, and where room affords this is recommended. People in small quarters sometimes make a mistake in buying but four chairs of a set, with the intention of buying the others later, and are sometimes disappointed, as the pattern is often obsolete when they are ready to buy. It is policy to buy the full set at a time. The extra chairs can be used in other parts of the house or stored away. If a full set is not desired it is better to buy a few odd chairs which could be used temporarily, and later placed in another part of the house, when a full set is bought.

The polished finished chair is about ten to fifteen per cent. higher in price than the gloss finish. Thegloss finish is simply a varnish applied with the brush, while the polish finish is hand rubbed.

In selecting a box seat chair, select one that is well braced under each corner of the seat, by screws and glue blocks, or braced inwardly. The back posts of a chair should run through to the floor and not terminate at the seat, if strength is desired. Bent hack posts are better than sawed out posts and not so liable to break or work loose at the joints and squeak when the chair is pushed back with force, as when one throws the entire weight on the hack legs by leaning back. In the medium grade chairs, a brace running from the back posts to the seats, adds wonderfully to the durability of the chair. If a chair is represented as oak, see that it is oak. Of all important things in a chair, the posts should be all oak to insure strength, as the first place for a chair to work loose is at the point where the seat joins the back posts, and when they weaken there it is almost impossible to properly repair them. For this reason elm is not a good wood for chair posts as it is too soft to hold screws securely. Spindle back chairs are not as comfortable as the slat or banister back chairs. Chairs with the back post concealed behind a top banister make a better appearance than those exposing the full length of the post.

Stretchers running from post to post below the seat reinforce the chairs, although in a box seat chair there are not as many used as in the less expensive chairs, where the more there are used the better, owing to the inferior construction.

Bent wood chairs have their place in the dining room and are highly recommended. They are strong and light in weight. The different parts are made from wood that is steamed and bent and thoroughly dried, after which the parts are assembled. If made of oak, these chairs are very durable.

In matching up a complete suit in the higher grade of dining room furniture, many miscellaneous pieces may be had to match the suits exactly in material and finish, such as serving trays, tea wagons, muffin stands, candlestick holders, etc.

Chair Glides

Owing to the fact that chairs of all kinds are dragged more or less from place to place, and pushed around, they mar the floor or wear the carpet, this also being a strain on the chair. Every straight leg chair should be fitted with metal glides, which help in a great measure to overcome that difficulty, and the additional cost is hardly worth mentioning.