Do you have a "usual" chair? At the table?

In a thread about peoples’ phones, someone mentioned their “usual place on the sofa.” Made me wonder whether most folk had a “usual” place where they sat when at home and, if so, what it was like. And, on a related point, do you generally sit at the same place at the table (if you sit at a table to eat?)

The chair I spend the most time in - whether working at home, reading, or when chatting with company, is a Stickley Morris chair with a footstool, in my living room right next to the front window. We have a bird feeder right outside the window that goldfinches frequent, and a good lamp next to it for reading. It’s not like it is MY chair and no one else is allowed to sit in it. I’l happy to sit in the other comfortable arm chair or on the couch. But If I’m planning on sitting down and the chair is unoccupied, that is my choice.

We have our TV in a different room which we use for little other than TV watching. I sit on the chair, and my wife takes the couch.

At the table, my wife and I sit on opposite sides, at an angle from each other (she likes to put her feet up on the chair across from her.) On the occasion that I sit on “her” side of the table, it feels weird.

How about you? Are you such creatures of habit?

Sort of. My Wife and I play a lot of chess and cribbage. We have a ‘game’ table. Really just a repurposed coffee table. We bought two really nice Amish rocking chairs for that. Works great. You can lean forward to look or lean back and relax while your opponent makes their move. So we each have our places when we play.

We also bought new furniture for the house. My Wife prefers the Lazy-Boy chair. I’m to tall to get comfortable with it, my feet dangle off the edge. I just use the couch and put my feet on a different coffee table with a pillow. And am often joined by one or two dogs.

Yes and it depends also.

At my house, the dental exam chair is free to use for all unless I want to sit in it. I also have a specific spot at my table(the seat itself you can move about all you like, that spot is mine)

At my parents house it depends on who is there. If it is just me or Vaderling and me, we sit in the same two chairs at the table always, and Ma Vader sits across from us, but if my siblings are there, we switch sides with Ma Vader and Big Sis sits next to me, Big Bro next to Ma Vader. Anymore people than that and it’s just a free for all.

ETA Pa Vader’s chair at the table never changes except for birthdays

We have his-n-hers recliners that are different sizes. Those are reserved to the person they fit. Though the ottomans are interchangeable and get swapped around sometimes.

I have a preferred spot on the couch (love seat really) because one spot is directly facing the HVAC vent and one is not. She likes cold; I hate having an air conditioning draft on me. So we tend to have our separate sides, but that’s not definitive.

We usually eat at a kitchen counter / bar / island with two matching barstools. We make a point of not having his side and her side. So that swaps around from meal to meal at random.

We only recently moved here and got a new 6-top dining table expandable to 8. We’ve only eaten at it a few times, but so far there’s no pattern to which spots we use.

You didn’t ask, but the bathroom has 2 sinks. We don’t have his sink and her sink either. One is primary for both of us because it’s more convenient to our respective drawers of bathroom gizmos & potions. The other sink is backup.

We definitely have his/her sinks in the main bath. Each has a medicine cabinet above it which contains our stuff. (Mine has more of the “general” stuff - aspirin, bandaids, as I have fewer toiletries.

It is funny when our kids come over. The youngest is 31, they’ve been out of the house for years, and we’ve moved to a different house. But we still have the same rectangular dining table and chairs and they will occasionally comment on wanting to sit in “their” spot. My wife’s and my spots have changed from then because we used to sit on the ends, but now we sit on the sides.

That was the deal at my parent’s house. We had to warn our kids not to sit in grandpa’s and grandma’s chairs. If they did and got caught, they would get shushed out if one of the grandparents reappeared.

I have MY chairs in various places in the house:

  1. at the kitchen table
  2. at the dining room table
  3. the bedroom recliner
  4. the TV room recliner
  5. at my desk

Otherwise, seats in the living room, library 1, library 2, & game table are first come, first seated.

There are just 2 of us in the household, and we each have our own recliner and associated side tables configured for our comfort. At the dinner table, we sit in the same places, mine being closest to the kitchen for my convenience.

When we have visitors, all bets are off.

I have kind of a throne on a raised dais near the front door. Makes it easier for guests to kiss my ring.

I have a recliner that has a swing-out computer chain. I bought it at a place called La Maison Danoise, so I guess it is Danish built. I always sit at the end of the DR table and my wife sits along the left side. A single guest will sit on the right facing her and more guests will array themselves further on along the sides. We could not seat more than 7. The TV faces my chair and there is a couch along side my recliner where my wife sits if we’re both watching. Generally she uses the main (ensuite) bath using the swink nearest the toilet. When it is just the two of us, I use the guest bath, but if we have guests, I use the other sink in the main bathroom. And we always sleep on the same side of any bed we happen to use. Like right now when we are visiting one of our kids. I sleep so that if I am on my back, I am on the left side of the bed.

Guests are so far pretty hypothetical in our new digs. But I’d never think to shoo a guest out of “my” recliner; they’re welcome to it IMO.

It’s merely that when it’s just us two around the house, I won’t sit in her recliner and she’d rather not sit in mine. I’m of normal to sorta-small size as males go; I’m comfortable in nearly any chair. She’s much closer to “tiny” and much prefers tween- or almost kid-sized furniture. Most typical adult furniture is slow torture for her and to be avoided if an alternative exists. So I’m not going to deprive her of her recliner sized for her.

Can your usual chair be an occasional chair?

Seems like cheating.

Yes, we sit in our same chairs at the dining table all the time - even if we’re not dining. It was the same when I was a kid. We all had our chairs. We never switched it up.

Can you imagine sleeping on your partners side of the bed??!! UGH that gives me the willies.

This thread reminds me of a vid I saw about the making of The Waltons. They each had their own seating in the kitchen set, and wouldn’t sit anywhere else even if the director demanded it.

Wife & I recently moved to a new residence. The differing arrangement of the new bedroom meant we had to switch sides of the bed. That was weird for about 2 days. I’d expected it would take a lot longer to get used to the change, but nope.

Yes I sit on the right side of the couch almost exclusively, unless I get up and the dog takes my spot in which case I move to the left side. It works out because I need to switch sides anyway.

When my boyfriend is here I sit on the left side of the couch, so as not to be too far away from him, when he sits in his spot on the loveseat.

At the dinner table, at my parents’ house, we all have our “usual” seats. We being me, mom, dad, bro and two nieces. Even when it’s just me and mom or bro and nieces, we all use our usual seats.

We have designated spots at the kitchen table. Elsewhere in our house there are seats that certain people tend to gravitate to, but no one has anything like a monopoly on any seat in any room.

Maybe it was because you were in a different location. I wonder if it would have taken longer to feel comfortable if you did it while at your old house?

Maybe, maybe not. I sleep alone in hotels 10-15 days per month and have for decades. Sometimes it’s a room with one bed and sometimes with two.

Before the house move I’d always sleep in a hotel bed on the same side as I slept at home. Just to avoid the confusion of which way to roll to find the floor in an emergency.

When we moved houses and switched bed sides I did the same side-switch in hotel rooms at the same time. That also took only one or two nights to feel normal.

Whether my large experience of sleeping in different rooms with different configurations every month for 30 years makes me more flexible than someone who’s been sleeping on the exact same side of the exact same bed with the exact same person for 30 years is hard to say.

For sure YMMV.

When I’m back in my hometown visiting my mother and sister, we have a fixed seating arrangement in the dining room when it’s all three of us. Mom sits in the chair closest to the kitchen, while my sister sits to her left because it enables her to avoid having to look at herself in the big mirror on the wall for the entire meal, and I sit to Mom’s right because the mirror doesn’t bother me (and the only other option is the chair where Dad would sit when he was alive, and it just doesn’t seem right to take it). This arrangement also happens to be identical to how we sat at the dinner table decades ago. But if my sister isn’t at the meal, I grab her chair out of convenience.