Hans Wegner designed his Wishbone chair in 1949 with a seat of woven paper cord, and the Met still holds one in beech and cord. Even the most famous wooden dining chair of the century needed something softer than wood to sit on, which is the whole case for upholstery in one object.

 

A padded seat and back change what a long meal feels like, and that matters in a house where the table is also the desk, the homework station and the place people sit talking after dinner. Fabric also softens a hard room. A dining space with a stone floor, a big table and six wooden chairs sounds like a canteen, and upholstery absorbs some of that. The question is not whether upholstered chairs are nicer to sit in. They are. It is what the upkeep costs in your house, and that depends far more on the fabric than on the shape.

 

The first grid is fabric. TOV Furniture, which began in New York in 2013, makes three of them: the grey boucle Corralis with its open back, the navy Performance Linen chair and the chunky cream Velvet chair. Latitude Run's Luckett is a cream chair on casters, which is kinder to a floor, and Millwood Pines' chair comes with a washable slipcover, the single most useful feature in this category. Lark Manor's Isfried, Red Barrel Studio's linen-blend chair on wood legs and George Oliver's green tub chair round it out.

 

There is a lot more fabric here now. West Elm's Hyde and Pottery Barn's Classic Square, Hayes and Maison are all in oatmeal or alabaster performance weaves, CB2's Avont in charcoal and Monte in ivory are the modern ones, and its Rio is walnut with a soft seat. Castlery's Brighton is a cream performance mélange and its Callie wears a washed-linen slipcover, Article's Renee is felted green, and CB2's Counsel and Lulu and Georgia's Adrien mix a wood frame with a woven or upholstered seat.

Two things on a spec sheet predict how a dining chair ages. The first is abrasion, usually quoted in Wyzenbeek double rubs in North America: a machine rubs the fabric against cotton duck, and each back-and-forth pass counts as one. Schumacher reserves 15,000 double rubs for low-traffic pieces and recommends 30,000 and above for heavy use, and a seat used every night is heavy use. Martindale is the European test, and the two numbers do not convert.

 

The second is the cleaning code. W means a water-based cleaner is safe, which is what you want when something spills at dinner. S means solvent only, W/S allows either, and X means vacuum only, which is a hard thing to live with on a dining chair. Performance fabric, in Schumacher's definition, is about a proper weight and a weave tight enough that the yarns do not catch or pull, not just a fiber name, so read the specs rather than the label.

 

Faux leather skips most of this, because it simply wipes. This grid is the wipe-clean answer: Corrigan Studio's Kamai in tan on carbon steel legs, its Josman in the same caramel, Latitude Run's Emsley in blue and Lark Manor's tufted cream chairs on dark wood legs.

 

Real leather belongs here too, because it wipes just as well and ages better: Article's Chantel and Sede, CB2's Surf Sling, Crate & Barrel's Henning, Lulu and Georgia's Gallagher in handwoven leather, Castlery's Sloane, Elliot and Anya in caramel, West Elm's Marcus Samuelsson chair and TOV's Vina in performance leather. TOV's Taylor and Modway's Jovi are the faux ones.

 

What I would skip: a pale, open-weave linen with an S code in a house with children. It is a different product from the same chair in a tight W-coded weave, even when the photo looks identical.

Removable, washable covers are the most useful feature here and the one most often skipped. Failing that, a darker or patterned fabric hides far more than a pale plain one, and a seat that does not trap crumbs at the join between seat and back saves a lot of time with the vacuum.

 

Consider mixing. Upholstered chairs at the ends where adults linger, and wood, cane or rattan chairs along the sides, keeps the comfort where it matters and the upkeep where it does not. This grid is that middle ground: TOV's Amara with an arched rattan back and a performance fabric cushion, Latitude Run's Marlow, a cantilever chair with a cane back and a tufted seat, and Crate & Barrel's Libby in black wood and natural cane with a removable linen-blend cushion.

 

The rest of this grid follows the same idea. Article's Meja, Wosla, Vila and Alta are oak frames with a leather or fabric seat, the Nosh and the Ulka are the simplest, and Castlery's Edith and Crate & Barrel's Astrid bring cane and rattan with a performance cushion. Crate & Barrel's Pierre is oak with a linen seat, CB2's Tub is a woven shell, and McGee & Co.'s Alberta and Serena & Lily's Wells are the investment pieces. George Oliver's Hillier is a linen blend Parsons chair on solid wood legs, a calm option for the sides of the table.

 

Then look at the feet. Bona, the floor-care company, suggests felt pads in dining rooms and kitchens because chairs move there more than anywhere else, and it warns that furniture that is not level can scratch the finish. A metal leg without a pad will mark a floor faster than any spill marks the fabric.

 

What I would skip: velvet on a chair that slides in and out every day. The pile crushes where hands grip the back.

Upholstered dining chairs are practical if you buy the fabric deliberately. A performance weave with a W or WS code and a decent abrasion rating in a mid tone is low effort, and I would put it in a house with children without hesitating. A pale open linen in the same shape is a different chair with the same photograph, and that is the purchase people regret three months in.

 

Wipeable faux leather is the least glamorous answer and the one that survives family meals best, so do not dismiss it. Red Barrel Studio's Kirjak in stain resistant linen, Wade Logan's Sheryl, AllModern's Anke in faux leather and a velvet barrel back with gold capped legs are the easy everyday picks in the last four dining chairs here.

 

Whatever you choose, buy one extra chair if the range allows, because a single ruined seat is much easier to fix while the fabric is still available. If you want to keep browsing, I also put together Chairs With Personality and Anthropologie Dupe.