My guess is that most people don't spend much time thinking about chairs. But if you were to think about it, you would realize that these pieces of furniture are pretty important in our lives. Let's do a survey of the important moments in our lives when chairs are essential.

Since eating is one of my more fun activities at home I choose to begin in the dining room. The type of chairs we have in this crucial room say a lot about our life styles. Considering that a dining room chair can cost hundreds of dollars each, the chairs we keep there say volumes about us. My attitude about these chairs is that all they need to do is hold up a guest or family member while he eats. It might not be padded, with elegant arms and wooden engravings of sea monsters and cameos of King Louis XIV, but as long as your guest or family member can reach the table, and you didn't go broke to achieve this noble goal then I think you've done your job.

Let us now enter the living room. That is a place where chairs can really say something about you and your personality, and how you treat your guests. Lots of comfortable chairs spread around the room in a way in which people can easily see and talk to each other expresses a truly welcoming host who has given some thought to entertaining his guests in a comfortable and welcoming manner. Strange, modern, uncomfortable chairs pushed far away from each other against walls or behind sculptures send the message that this room is a showcase for my stuff and not a place for visitors or talking. Usually people with rooms like these have another room, maybe the kitchen, where guests are entertained. That might not be such a bad arrangement considering how much closer you are to the refrigerator in this instance.

I had a friend that actually had a gate across the door to her living room. The message here was clearly, "Only enter when invited, which in your case will probably be never." On the other hand, my living room only has room for one chair. It is a rocking chair. The other places to sit are on the sofa, where there is room for three (four if you squeeze) and on the loveseat where there is room for two (three if you squeeze.) Any overflow guests have to pull in some folding chairs or dining room chairs. This is OK for me. We actually have a room called the "chair room," where we store all our folding chairs and dining room chairs that are not in use at the moment. In my living room talking proceeds quite uninhibited with everyone together at such close quarters.

Now we come to bedrooms. The modern concept of a child's bedroom is a room for sleeping, relaxing and doing homework. In the ideal world, this seems like a really great situation, and in a room like this it would be very appropriate to include a nice school desk with a comfortable chair just the right size for your little scholar. In my home, where the mom does most of the homework while she is making dinner, my little ones do their homework, so to speak, while sitting at the kitchen table, snacking, talking on the phone and once in a while writing down something on a piece of paper for school.

So there is my survey of chairs and their meaning in our lives. Try sitting down without one. You might find it hard to get up again, that is, if you're my age.