The STELLA Comfort Rocking Chair

A rocking chair with reversible armrests and a tufted pad

The pad is the whole seat. One thick tufted piece, cream on the face and houndstooth along the underside and the outer back, laid over a dark brown frame and hanging past the front edge. Nothing about it is fitted: it drapes. The frame shows through at the arms and the runners, and a flat pocket sits on the side of the pad, within reach of a hand. This rocking chair is a cushion and a structure, kept as two separate things.

The arms are reversible, and they run from the front runner up and back in a single line. Their height is what shapes the sitting position: they sit low, closer to the pad than to the shoulders, so the forearms rest along them rather than lift towards them. The pad takes the weight before the frame does, sinking at the seat and holding at the edges. Below, a low bar ties the runners together, and the arc they give is long and slow.

The frame reaches further than the seat does. The runners extend past the back of the pad and out in front of it, so the floor it occupies is longer than the chair looks, and the arc adds to that at both ends. The arms sit wide, which is the measurement that matters between the chair and a side table.

Wood, textile and finish on a reversible-arm rocker

The finish was set in advance: a dark brown frame under a cream pad, with the houndstooth reading as a line rather than a pattern from any distance. In daylight the pad stays matt while the frame picks up the shine, which is the reverse of what most chairs do. The two materials also age in opposite directions, the textile softening and marking where a body sits, the frame darkening where hands pass over it.

Each asks for something different. The pad wants a soft brush across the tufting and a vacuum with the brush head into the seams, where dust settles first, with marks blotted rather than rubbed. The frame wants a dry cloth, and a wax rather than an oil if it starts to look dry, since oils build up on a finished surface and leave a film behind.

Two comparisons place it quickly: the seats with a drawn frame, where the structure is meant to be read, and the chairs that swing on runners, which share the movement and little else.

Arms that are not fixed set a tufted-pad rocker apart

On most lounge rockers the arms are decided at the factory and stay that way for the life of the chair. Here they are not, which is unusual enough on a frame of this kind to be worth a second look. Everything else is deliberately settled: one pad, one frame, no mechanism under the seat and nothing to fold away. The frame is solid wood and steel, rated to 150 kg.

It works where a chair is used loosely rather than formally: a corner of a living room, the end of a long room, a study where the desk chair does the upright work. The low arms and the deep pad put the body at an angle that suits reading better than typing. What a fixed-arm chair cannot do is be set up more than one way.

One pad, one frame, and the arms as the only part not settled in advance.

On arms and wood

Two questions that come up about the arms of a chair, and about the frame underneath them.

How high should chair armrests be?

Level with the elbow when the shoulders hang loose, which in practice depends on the seat as much as on the arm itself. A soft seat drops the body as it compresses, so arms that measured well on paper can sit high once someone is actually in the chair. Sitting in it is the only real test.

How do you clean wooden chair arms?

Dust first with a dry cloth, then use one wrung out in warm water with a little mild detergent, working with the grain and drying straight afterwards. Skip oil-based polishes on a finished frame: they build up over time and leave a film that turns cloudy. A hard wax, occasionally, does more.

Type: Rocking Chair
Upholstery: Ultra-Soft Fabric
Padding: High-Density Foam
Frame: Solid Wood and Steel
Rocking Base: Curved Solid Wood
Armrests: Reversible
Maximum Load Capacity: 150 kg
Assembly: Simple and Quick

• Free delivery anywhere in the UK
• Dispatched within 24 to 48 hours, delivered in 2 to 5 days
• 14 days to change your mind
• Guarantee against defects or damage on receipt
• Customer service available 7 days a week