Barrel Accent Chairs (page 2)

A barrel chair is one continuous line. The back curves forward without a break to become the arms, the silhouette of a barrel cut in half, and that single piece of geometry is what separates it from a club chair with its distinct back and two squared-off arms. The curve is also doing structural work. Most rooms are built almost entirely of right angles, so a barrel chair enters as a round shape among square ones, which is exactly the contrast a stiff room is missing. It's also why there's no bad angle on one. It holds a corner, and it works pulled well away from the wall. Material is where the decision actually gets made. Leather is the one that rewards time. It wears in rather than out, and it takes a busy house better than most upholstery fabric. It also brings patina into a room where everything else is new, which is often what a recently furnished space is missing. Boucle and textured wovens go the other direction and soften a room that has gone hard with leather and wood. A fully upholstered chair in performance fabric is the practical pick when it sits in the main traffic of the house. Whichever way you go, undertone is the thing that has to line up. A warm oatmeal sofa wants warm neutrals, and a cool grey one will fight a camel leather. Barrel chairs run deeper than they look, so measure seat depth and not just the footprint. A small barrel chair under about 30 inches wide suits a bedroom corner or a reading nook, while an oversized one needs a room that can absorb it. A swivel base earns its place when the chair has two jobs, facing the TV and facing the conversation. Fixed is the better-looking piece, because without a mechanism underneath you get the full leg and foot style. If this is where you'll actually sit and read for an hour, give it an ottoman and its own light. Get the material and the scale right and the room stops looking correct and starts looking like it came together over time.