budget office chairs

One of my duties at the new company is to buy furniture on a very tight budget. I like bargains, but finding a good office chair is an essential and often expensive proposition. If money were no object I would select the Freedom chair or the Leap chair. As much as I like Herman-Miller, I feel the Aeron is over-rated although the Celle chair does look interesting.

Alas, conserving money is the object, so I have been looking at Office Depot, Ikea and used furniture stores like Desk Depot and Repot Depot. After sampling scores of chairs, I found 2 that met my comfort and aesthetic standards: one new and one used.

The new chair (top right) comes from Staples, and at $89.94 delivered it is an incredible bargain. The fabric is a thin but soft leather and it is quite adjustable. The seat pad is cushy and the lower back support is excellent. I have sat in chairs many times the price that could not match its comfort and, amazingly, it comes with a 3-year warranty on the fabric and a 10-year warranty on the mechanism. This is the chair my partners and I selected for our office.

The used chair (left) is made by Sitag and it is available from Better Source Liquidators in San Mateo. It is also $89, but it was once closer to $1000. Sitag products are not cheap or easy to find.

This chair has adjustable back height, arm height and arm angle, and it comes in a hip shade of orange. It would have been our conference room chair if my partners were a little less stodgy, but one of the 5 remaining can be yours for your home office. The 6th is now in my home office as I am taking a break from my stylish but stiff Eames aluminum group desk chair.