Chair — Blog — Healy Chen

I got a couch

Recently I finally bought a couch for my studio space - after over two years of first moving in. FYI: the inflation crisis have reached the furniture space as well. I had no idea simple armchairs are so expensive. Even the vaunted IKEA value pricing cannot salve the situation. You’re looking at $400 starting for a typical chair. Get additive like I did - I bought a chaise-style lounge chair with side armrests - and the final bill was over $900. This thing had better last a very long time.

The primary reason for getting the chaise is so I can relax in front of the television. Now that I’ve converted to sitting on the floor for my office/workstation desk, I need an actual chair for entertainment watching (I no longer have an office chair). It is indeed nice to be able to lounge on a fat couch after a hard day’s work, or on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Perhaps I can even take a nap! I loathe to get in bed without first showering, so I could never take naps on my actual bed. I realize most other folks don’t have such quirky idiosyncrasy.

A comfy couch does introduce a new problem: utter laziness. Soon as I collapse into the chaise’s warm embrace, I really don’t want to get out of it. Just this past week alone, I missed two days of morning writing, simply because I lounged on the chair first to drink the morning coffee. It’s too easy to zone out and be lackadaisical. Which is why I’m typing this out right now, on a Saturday - got to make up for the missed days!

I think the strategy going forward is to only be on the couch after I’ve done the day’s work. The enjoyment of doing nothing should only come after having done something. There should be no reward without first the work!

Riding on rollerblades

About a year ago at work, our office chairs got reupholstered. A coworker made sure that his chair did not get lost in the shuffle - the one he parts with is the one he is to get back. It was easy enough: that chair has a feature distinct from the rest. Instead of the typical plastic casters the rest of our chairs have, the coworker’s chair has rollerblade wheels. On first impression, it looked completely weird. Can it even move properly?

I filed it to the back of my mind, chalking it up as a funky quirk of the coworker. The original casters on my chair works just fine!

Recently, however, I stumbled upon a tweet from someone I follow. He mentioned rollerblade wheel upgrade for office chairs, and how it is an excellent quality of life improvement, especially for work-from-home folks. The link to the Amazon page reveals a surprisingly low cost. For about $40 dollars, anyone can upgrade the casters on their chairs. I was intrigued, not by the promised benefits, but the price! It’s cheap enough to give it a go.

Performing the upgrade is super easy: the standard casters literally pop right off from the chair. The rollerblade wheels then pop right in. In less than a minute, I was done. I do suggest wearing gloves, because grease and dirt will get onto the hands.

I should have done this way sooner! Rollerblade wheels are such a revelation. Not only does my Herman Miller Aeron rolls incredibly smoothly, it’s also far quieter than before. I can glide from one end of the room to the other with minimal noise. The product claims it’s kinder to the floors, too, though my plastic laminate flooring didn’t suffer under the plastic casters. So I can’t confirm that part.

I’m going to ask at work if they can buy me a set for my office chair.