Drafting Chairs

A drafting chair is an ordinary task chair with a longer gas cylinder and a ring for your feet, and those two changes make it the only chair that works with a height-adjustable desk. The problem it solves is specific. Most people who buy a sit-stand desk do not alternate between two extremes; they settle at a perched height somewhere around 36 to 40 inches for part of the day. A normal office chair cannot reach that, so the desk gets driven back down to seated height and stays there.

The foot ring is the part that makes perching survivable. Without somewhere to put your feet, a raised seat puts the whole weight of your legs on the front edge of the cushion, and that is the sensation people describe as the chair being uncomfortable when the real problem is that they are hanging off it. The ring here adjusts, which matters because its correct height depends on your leg length rather than the seat height.

All three chairs are the same chair in khaki, blue and black: 300 pound capacity, flip-up armrests, lumbar support in the back, nylon upholstery, and an overall height of 55 inches. The armrests folding up is worth more than it sounds on a desk with a keyboard tray or a drawer unit, because it is what lets the chair go all the way under the desk when you stand up instead of parking it in the room.