Searching for the perfect blogging chair

If you use a computer for any length of time, especially if that computer takes up a large percentage of your day, you will already know how important it is to be comfortable and properly supported by the chair of your choice. Unfortunately, and particularly in a home office setup, the chair is often the most overlooked and underfunded piece of equipment.

It’s a serious problem. Sitting on a piece of junk while you work can lead to back pain and posture problems. As someone who spends a lot of time in front of a computer, writing music, blogging, or doing anything else that requires sitting down in front of a static desk, I owe it to myself to make sure I have the best equipment I can afford.

My office is quiet, reasonably spacious and decorated in a muted shade of brown. Photographs of my daughter, including a very nice black and white canvas print that my wife bought me for Christmas, adorn the walls. In front of me, on a large and height adjustable glass desk sits a 24 inch iMac. The Apple mouse, which stands out as the only Apple product I have ever used which proved to be totally useless, has been replaced long ago by an ergonomically gifted Logitech work of art that puts the Cupertino offering to shame.

All in all, it’s a very nice setup in an equally nice space and a joy to use.

But my chair, perhaps surprisingly given the amount of money invested in other areas of my office, is a scrappy looking swiveling chunk of wood from the darkest recesses of an Ikea warehouse. It’s falling apart, with one arm literally hanging off where a metal screw has sheared in two. Frankly, it’s one step up from sitting on a wooden box, forcing me to slump forwards over my desk in a very unnatural position.

I’m amazed that I have let this situation continue for so long.

And now, as anyone with the slightest chiropractic knowledge will have guessed already, I have a pain in my back. It’s been there for a few weeks but is getting worse, moving from the middle of my back up through my left shoulder. The shoulder that does all the leaning and twisting as I lurch forwards onto the keys.

Although it may also be time to see a chiropractor it’s definitely time for a new chair.

After a little research it would seem that the default choice for a comfortable and ergonomic desk chair is the Herman Miller Aeron chair. But, as good as the marketing behind that chair is, I’m not convinced that it is the best option for someone who spends a lot of time in front of a computer.

The Herman Miller Areon may well be the brand that many covet but, for anyone who wants something a little different, something with a little spark, something that might even get the creative juices flowing whilst still offering the kind of spine straightening benefits that only a well designed and well engineered chair can offer, there might be a new king in town.

This is the Hag Capisco.

Striking, isn’t it? The absolute antithesis of the Herman Miller Areon. Where the Areon is corporate, regimented and dull the Capisco is independent, vibrant and alluring. Where the Areon is available in black, light black and dark black the Capisco is available in a range of fabrics and shades that will be as pleasing to the eye as the engineering delights the spine.

The work of the designer, Peter Opsvik, pictured below reclining, no doubt, in another of his creations, is already present in our house. Our two year old daughter has a Tripp Trapp chair, a wonderful piece of design that she, and everyone who sees it, loves.

Like most high end chairs the Hag Capisco isn’t cheap. Fully specced, with a headrest and in a non standard fabric, its retail price would rival that of the Areon chair. Now all I need to do is find a supplier who is happy to negotiate a good deal in return for some exposure here at Upstart Blogger. If you are such a supplier then please email me on ashley@ashleymorgan.com so that we can talk.

In the meantime I will happily peruse the numerous options and fabrics, looking forward to the day when I can sit at my desk without damaging my posture and suffering aches and pains all over one side of my back.