The wife is back in school, so she's doing a lot of homework at her desk. She's always found her Series Seven swivel armchair to be perfectly adequate for the brief periods she spent browsing the web and writing letters, but now that she's studying for hours at a time in it, it's no longer very comfortable.
Naturally, I suggested she solve this problem by dropping out of school... But she wants to get a new chair, instead.
The desk is an EDU. It's in a bedroom, so:
a) the chair can't be so scary-ugly that it gives people nightmares, and
b) it can't take up a lot of space when she's not in it; if it has arms, they need to fit under the desktop.
That first restriction disqualifies the Embody, and I THINK the second one disqualifies the Aluminum Group management chair (but I haven't actually measured one yet).
She's considering the Aeron, of course, and we may end up going that way by default -- it'll certainly be comfortable, and Aerons are practically a dime a dozen here in Silicon Valley. To her eye, though, the Aeron looks unattractively like contract office furniture (she HATES my clunky old Fahnstrom/McCoy Bulldog), and she'd really like to find something that looks more gracefully at-home in a home.
So... Ideas, please?
P.S. Here's a photo to show why the chair can't take up too much space. It was taken right after we moved the desk in; there's a little more furniture and art (and a little less blue masking tape) in there now.
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There are Eames alu models without arms (they even cost less when armless).
In general, if you stumble upon an Eames alu chair with armrests, I do believe that these armrests can be unscrewed (by loosening 3 screws on each side L/R) from the frame of the chair. You can not see the screws from the side of the chair. But when you look at the back at the chair you can localise them: e.g. where you see the chrome horizontal divider, that is where the first screw is.
Check pic 5 of these chairs on Eby (nr 320418968381)
You could unscrew the armrests, keep them in a closet, and reassemble when the chair is used elsewhere with more room.
You can call your Vitra/ Herman Miller dealer to confirm that the arms of the model you are interested in can be screwed off (or double check with the EBay seller before you bid).
check out the new Setu Chair from Herman Miller
The new Setu chair has the classic styling of the Eames Aluminum Group but all the engineering of the Aeron. With or without arms, casters or glides.
http://www.hermanmiller.com/DotCom/jsp/product/prod013.jsp?prodId=277
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