Picking The Best Egg Chair Meant for The Back Porch

Since I am Genetically One-Quarter Egg Chair… (John described me that way in this post, and it made me laugh because let us face it, it is true). I am also one-quarter dog fur (it is consistently all over me) and one-quarter ceramic animal (no further explanation required).

How swiftly this post got off track.

Anyway, now that we have a sofa and a coffee table on our back porch, the next thing on our list was a little more seating to round out that side of the room in the form of a comfy chair. Our first option was simply to buy the $749 chair that matches our sofa. We liked that it would certainly tie into the color/look of the woven sofa without us having to worry that it would clash or look off. But we wondered if we would wish we went for something a little more lively and a little less matchy down the line, and it did take up a fairly big rectangular footprint, which might crowd the corner where we hoped to put it.

Another contender was a hanging egg chair like this $498 one from Anthropologie, simply because we thought it could be lively in a lounge-y outdoor space. But we questioned the comfort factor (without plush seat and back cushions, would it get much use?) and we worried a little about the kid-stunt factor (some of Clara’s friends are a bit more… acrobatic). Did not want any broken wrists on our watch – especially with the hard tile below. We also worried about the logistics of it holding sufficient weight to be safe since John the Builder in fact had to reinforce the overhead beams on the showhouse’s front porch to accommodate the porch swing.

Then we talked about an egg chair that hung from a stand instead of the ceiling, like this $590 option from Joss & Main, but still did not fully trust that we’d want to constantly enforce the whole “do not swing on this” rule (would kids try to twist it around and ride it like a tire swing?). We also thought the futuristic silhouette might not go as well with our outdoor sofa. Although we did remark that Nuni & Nooni would enjoy it.

We also saw this one on Pinterest from World Market, which might have gone better with our sofa, but when we clicked over to see the price it was sold out. Oh well, it still had that hanging-on-a-chain-likely-is not-ideal thing going on.

Then there was this one from Joss & Main, which was more like a boat than a chair, but it did look fairly cozy. It was too big for our space, and the $1500+ price tag was more than we hoped to spend, but if we ever have a spare house in Bali to our name we would not be mad at a few of these out by the pool.

We kept saying things like “I wish we could find something that sits on the ground like the egg chair at the showhouse.” We enjoyed everything about that chair (the color was strong, it swiveled, it was especially comfortable, etc). And although we checked every shop we could think of, as well as simply doing some random googling, we did not come up with anything that truly compared.

It kind of reminded us of this one that Pottery Barn used to sell for $1300 a few years back, except that one was a little too warm to go with our cool brown/gray sofa, and it did not swivel.

Then we realized we could try buying an identical egg chair to the one from the showhouse directly from GreenFront. We simply had to see if they had another one in their store. And as we were telling one of the folks from the showhouse this story they said “why do not you check with John (the Builder) to see if the showhouse egg chair is one of the borrowed pieces that he’s planning to return, because if so I bet you can buy it over the phone from GreenFront (around 50% of the GreenFront furniture we got was on loan and they were picking it back up after the show).

So we called John the Builder to ask about it, held our breath, and… he said we could not buy the chair. Sad clown. But the reason he would not let us buy it was because the whole team hoped to go in on it as a thank you to us for working on the showhouse with them over the past year! We could not believe it. We are still doing that “no way simply take our money” thing, so we will have to report back if we can sneak them the cash somehow (my mom is a fan of the “hide-it-in-their-purse” method, but most of the team is purse-less…).

Does not the wicker look like it was meant to be paired with the sofa? We are so glad they work so well together. We also appreciate that the seat is Sunbrella fabric, so it should hold up to Clara’s bubble-solution-covered hands and Burger’s muddy paws. As for the side table, we chose it was a little too much wicker for us (you know my enjoy of ceramic garden stools – especially to add color outside) so we sent it back to GreenFront with the rest of the borrowed pieces that they came back to collect instead of purchasing it – but it was pleasant to take a look at it first to be sure.

Now it looks more like this in that corner (we took this photo after the others in this post, so ignore the wicker side table’s presence and pretend you see this shiny red beacon of garden stool enjoy):

But back to the chair. It has already been getting a LOT of use from this guy…

… and even some lounge-time from this guy…

I am getting in on the action too. Sometimes I find myself out there, simply gently rocking with the baby in my arms while Clara plays with her water table (swivel action FTW). Certainly one of my go-to new spots.

So that is the Strong Egg Chair Hunt of 2014. Although when you pan out it is clear that we still have the other side of the sunroom to furnish. I am thinking a little bistro table under that second fan would be pleasant since there is still room to walk around something like that. And of course we still need to build a box to cover those ugly wires that snake down the brick wall.

Here is a wider shot from further back. You might notice that we parked our dining chairs around the table simply because we thought they’d get more use out here in the nicer weather (they are outdoor chairs so they ain’t afraid of no ghost rain). The jury’s still out whether it is a temporary move for them, but Burger has already been found lounging on their plush seat cushions, so that is one vote for them staying outside over the folding chairs that were there before.

Are you folks shopping for any outdoor stuff lately? Are you one-quarter garden stool? I might be too. Hey, perhaps we are related.

Psst- For more what-we-considered rundowns like this one, here is one about doorknobs, one about kitchen lights, one about rugs, one about dining tables, one about sectionals, one about washers & dryers, and one about our outdoor sofa.