The Chair

After much pondering and debate I decided to purchase a new chair for my new work space. I realized after spending four hours or so sitting at my desk writing, my back was killing me, along with my shoulders, my neck, my hip, okay you get the picture. I had never given much thought to my seating arrangement until this issue came up. Perhaps that was the very reason that I could never find a comfortable place to write. So, I headed to the internet and began my search. One of my main issues is that I am rather short. What may work for the average height person, usually doesn't work for me. I was pleasantly surprised to find there are quite a few companies that offer chairs for short people. I searched long and hard and was, as on my desk, shocked by the sticker price on a good ergonomic chair. I feel that anyone who sits for hours at their desk should, no, must, get an ergonomic chair. Think about it, we spend more hours in our chairs than we do in our beds! I am not sure how we can justify getting a cheap $40 chair when we will be in it at least 7 hours a day. On that caveat, I will say if it works for you, great, but it was not working for me. After searching for about three days I decided I had to at least try out a Herman Miller, Aeron even with the $900 price tag. After all it had won tons of awards. I packed my entourage in the van and headed down to Savannah, as there are no furniture stores that had any of the chairs on my list. I visited two stores, both of which had lovely things for the office, sigh... So the adventure began. As soon as we entered the second store, which was Mason, Inc on Jackson St. downtown, my little people turned into a wild pack of monkeys, again. The staff was very nice and helpful and did not mind too much the little ones climbing, "testing out the chairs" and rearranging their displays. As much as the Herman Miller was nice, I fell in love with the "Life Chair" by Knoll. This company has some of the coolest and ergonomic office products I have seen. I could have waited, and ordered a custom chair with the colors and fabrics I had picked, but the one they had on the floor was great. This chair is fully customizable, as in the depth of the seat, the height of the arms rests, the depth of the arm rests, the flexibility of the back, the height of the chair, and the lumbar support.  Again, this is a great feature as I am short and my hubby, should he ever want to sit in it, can make it fit him as well. It's kinds of like having two chairs in one. I will admit the price was a bit steep, but I think well worth the benefits. So while you may not was to spend a small fortune, keep in mind the hours you will be sitting in the chair. If you are going to search for a chair, don't take an entourage with you, bring a book or magazine to hang out in the chair for a while so you can get the real feel then decide what is best for you. Good luck.

Florina Craven

The Search

I realized after spending hours writing my writing space needed a revamp. Actually, I had no real writing space. First, I started sitting in my comfy overstuffed chair, then I would move to the couch, then the kitchen table, then the dining room table. You can see this was a problem. We do have an office, what we did not have was a desk where my computer could nicely and my arms too. So I grabbed my entourage and headed to the local furniture stores to see what could be found. When I embarked upon this mission, I had no idea of the expense involved, so you can imagine I was floored by the cost of a nice desk. I searched on-line as well, but did not feel right about getting a desk I could not actually touch and sit at. As I shopped and tested out lots of varying models I realized two things. One, when brought into a nice furniture store children who are normally well behaved turn into a hoard of wild monkeys and two, what you end up loving always costs more than you had intended on spending. I rationalize this with the fact that I spend more hours at my desk than I do in my bed. I am excited to say I did find a nice desk that I absolutely love and already lots of work has gotten done. Next will be a new chair but more on that later.

Florina Craven