The Takeaway:
1. Our Pick: Jennifer Taylor Jack Tufted Arm Chair
2. Runner-Up: Milan Armchair By Sunset Trading
3. Value Pick: Moe’s Home Collection Club Chair
Are you in the market for some new living room furniture? Are you a heavier individual? If you answered yes to both of those questions, you already know how difficult it can be to find big and sturdy furniture enough to support you properly.
The simple truth is that most of the furniture on the market today can only support about 300-pounds. More than that, the number of options you have drops off very quickly, and what little remains tend to be…well, ugly, not to put too fine a point on it.
The good news is that there are robust and attractive options available, but you do have to do some digging to find them. That’s where we come in and why this review was written.
We took a deep dive into the market to find the best high weight capacity accent chairs today. After extensive research, we compared many models against each other, and in a closely fought contest, we found and declared an overall winner. We’ll introduce you to that winner and the chairs it competed against for top honors in this roundup review, but before we do that, let’s start by taking a high-level view of all of our finalists side by side.
Comparison Table
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Our Pick
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4.4
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4.4
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4.2
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N/A
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N/A
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N/A
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Overall Dimensions:
38” W x 33” D x 31.5” H
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Overall Dimensions:
31” H x 40” D x 46.5” W
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Overall Dimensions:
29” W x 33.5” D x 31.5” H
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Seat Height:
19.5”
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Seat Height:
17.5”
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Seat Height:
16”
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Seat Width:
24.5”
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Seat Width:
26.5”
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Seat Width:
22”
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Chair Weight:
36 pounds
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Chair Weight:
93 pounds
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Chair Weight:
41.8 pounds
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Max. Supported Weight:
400 pounds
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Max. Supported Weight:
400 pounds
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Max. Supported Weight:
400 pounds
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Pros:
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Pros:
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Pros:
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Cons:
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Cons:
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Cons:
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Our Verdict:
Overall, a great piece of furniture you’ll be proud to own. Recommended
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Our Verdict:
Hands down the most expensive chair on our list of finalists, but you get what you pay for. We recommend it.
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Our Verdict:
Beautifully designed and built with high-quality materials, we recommend it.
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- It’s a beautiful, surprisingly comfortable piece of furniture offered at a price you’ll love.
- It’s almost too attractive for its own good, which may make it a little more difficult to blend into homes sporting a casual décor scheme. The polyester upholstery is a bit underwhelming.
- Big, beautiful, and clad in high-quality leather. This chair is as much a comfortable work of art as it is an accent chair.
- Although this is very high-quality leather, it’s still not a very pet-friendly piece of furniture. It’s also wildly expensive, which will put it out of reach for many.
- Beautiful, stylish, modern chair, upholstered with high-quality leather.
- Second most expensive chair on our list of finalists. Seat height is a bit on the low side.
Our Selection Criteria
As the title of this review indicates, our overriding goal here was to find chairs capable of supporting a generous amount of user weight. Unfortunately, the phrase “high weight capacity” can mean different things to different people, so let’s make it more specific. Given the 300-pound weight limit we mentioned earlier, which is the norm for most furniture on the market today, we decided to set our minimum at a 400-pound weight limit. More is always better, of course, but we considered 400-pounds the minimum threshold even to be viewed here.
Beyond that, comfort was an important consideration, but not as big a factor as you might imagine. The reason is simple: The chairs under consideration here are accent chairs. As such, they’re designed for occasional seating. They don’t have to be as plush or comfortable as loungers and recliners. Comfort still matters, of course, just not quite as much as it might where other types of chairs are concerned.
After that, we paid special attention to the seat width and the overall value proposition. Seat width matters because if we’re looking for chairs that are specifically designed to support more than the average amount of user weight, the seat width needs to be wider than average too, and value always matters, unless you’re swimming in money, which we assume isn’t true for most people.
Our Pick: Jennifer Taylor Jack Tufted Arm Chair
Recommended For: Anyone looking for a reasonably comfortable, stylish, versatile oversized accent chair.
Our overall winner in this roundup review of the best high weight capacity accent chair is simply a gorgeous piece of furniture. It’s so good-looking that it works against itself somehow. Although Jennifer Taylor isn’t the biggest company on the market, they have a history of making high-quality furniture and taking good care of its customers. This chair is an excellent example of their work.
Before we get into the particulars of what this chair has to offer, let’s do a quick stats review. Here are the basics:
These are uniformly good numbers, in our view. The seat dimensions are a good pairing with the maximum supported weight, and even if you’re quite close to the chair’s 400-pound limit, the seat is almost certain to be wide enough to accommodate you comfortably.
Similarly, the seat height is a good match for the rest of the numbers. Typically, big and tall furniture has a seat height that starts at 18” and goes up from there, so this one is solidly in the big and tall territory.
Even better, if you decide you want one, you can get yours in a modest selection of subdued colors, making it easy to blend the chair in with most color schemes. The one potential problem you’ll run into, though, is that if your house is decorated in a casual style, the chair might be “too pretty” to fit in well. It’s got an unmistakable look of elegance that simply won’t be a perfect match for every home décor scheme.
You can minimize its impact, thanks to the subdued colors, or use it as an eye-popping centerpiece, but you will have to put relatively more thought into making this chair “work” with your other furniture if you have a casual décor scheme.
The chair utilizes generous amounts of conventional block foam for padding, which is fairly standard in living room furniture. Although it’s not designed for all-day lounging, this model is delightfully comfortable. So, if you needed something for longer duration lounging, this one could work in a pinch.
The only other potential negative to talk about here is that the upholstery is a bit of a disappointment. It’s polyester, which isn’t known for its durability or breathability. If there’s an upshot here, it is the fact that the chair’s frame is high quality and built to last, so when the day comes to reupholster it, doing so is a good investment.
Overall, it’s a great, well-priced piece of furniture that would make a fantastic addition to almost any home. We feel it is well-deserving of top honors here. We recommend it.
Runner Up: Milan Armchair By Sunset Trading
Recommended For: Anyone looking for an extremely comfortable oversized accent or club chair provided you can afford it.
Our second-place offering here in our roundup review of the best accent chairs for heavy people is interesting because, in some ways, it’s highly similar to our top pick, while in other ways, it offers stark contrasts. For starters, like the chair offered by Jennifer Taylor, this is a great-looking piece of furniture, though its beauty takes a very different form. Where the Jennifer Taylor chair has a look of elegance and refinement, the Milan offers a simple, understated beauty.
Also, like our top pick, it’s a very large piece of furniture. In fact, it’s the largest chair on our list of finalists. If you live in a smaller home or apartment or if you’re otherwise cramped for space, it’s going to be a real challenge to find a good home for it.
However, making space for it is well worth the effort because, unlike our top pick, the designers here spared no expense. Every aspect of this chair, from the frame to the comfort system to the upholstery, is best in class, quality-wise.
That’s superb, and with proper care, this chair is likely to outlast every other model on our list, but of course, there’s a tradeoff where that’s concerned; Milan is far and away from the most expensive accent chair on our list of finalists. More than anything else, this fact is why it ultimately earned a second-place spot rather than top honors. Many mere mortals on a budget simply won’t be able to afford this one.
Before we go further, let’s do a quick stats review. Here are the basics:
So, it’s the biggest and heaviest chair on our list, and the seat dimensions are a good match for its generous supported weight limit. The seat height isn’t quite in the big and tall territory, but it only misses that mark by half an inch, which is hardly a deal-breaker.
Also, note the low back on this model. Although the chair is wonderfully well-padded and comfortable, the low back will dissuade most people from trying to use the Milan as a lounger. It’s a wonderful occasional chair, but it’s just not designed for all-day, everyday use.
Let’s talk about the comfort system. Most of the furniture on the market today utilizes conventional block foam for padding, but Sunset Trading goes well beyond that here. The topmost layer of padding is a delightful down feather topper, 2” thick. Beneath that, you’ll find a fast recovery memory foam. Under that, there’s a third layer of high-density foam padding, reinforced by a no-sag Pirelli elastic fiber decking and individually wrapped pocket coil springs.
In short, if this chair had a higher back, you’d probably have to be forced out of it, it’s so comfortable. It’s amazing, and if you decide to buy one, the comfort offered by the Milan will probably wind up being your favorite aspect of its design.
Finally, note that this chair requires very little in the way of assembly. All you have to do to get it ready for first use is put your feet on. It will probably take you more time to get the chair out of the box than get it ready for first use. Kudos to Sunset Trading for that!
No matter how you slice it, this chair is absolutely amazing and assuming you can afford one; you’re going to love it absolutely. We recommend it.
Value Pick: Moe’s Home Collection Club Chair
Recommended For: Anyone weighing up to 400-pounds, looking for an accent chair that makes a bold statement.
If you have an eye for décor and a bit of an artistic flair, you’re going to love the Moe’s Home Collection Club Chair. Like our top two picks, this is a gorgeous chair. The interesting thing about all of the chairs we’ve talked about to this point here in our roundup review of the best heavy duty accent chairs is the fact that they’re each attractive in different ways.
The Jennifer Taylor chair is elegant and refined. The Milan chair offers a simple, timeless, rustic beauty, and this one boasts fun, modern styling that most people will love.
Good furniture has to be more than just pretty, however. It also has to be robust, rugged, and functional, and Moe’s Club Chair is all of those things. Before we say more, though, let’s do what we have done so far and take a look at the numbers that define the model:
Almost all of these numbers are excellent. The seat dimensions are a superb pairing with the supported weight limit. Unlike the burly Milan, this model is light enough that if you decide you want to move it to some other room in your house, you won’t need any assistance to do so.
The only potential problem here is the fact that the seat is only 16” high. Given that the seat height on big and tall furniture typically starts at 18” and goes up from there if you’re a taller individual and especially if you suffer from any sort of mobility issue, getting into and out of this chair might be a bit of a challenge.
Again though, it’s important to remember what these chairs were designed for. As occasional seats, that may be an issue once in a while, but it’s not likely to be a huge deal most of the time. Even so, it’s important enough to give it a quick mention here.
Like the Milan offered by Sunset Trading, this offering utilizes top-quality upholstery but stops short where the rest of the chair is concerned. Granted, the rest of the materials used in its construction are all high grade, but where the Milan took a “spare no expense” approach, this chair stuck to the basics where everything except for the upholstery was concerned.
As such, the padding used here is conventional block foam. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, and there’s enough of it that the chair provides a delightful seating experience.
Although we really like this chair, and Moe’s is a great company with a long history of making high-quality furniture, there are three reasons this model didn’t rank higher.
First, owing to the fact that it utilizes top-quality leather upholstery, this is the second most expensive chair on our list. Second, not everyone will appreciate or be a huge fan of the contemporary aesthetic, which makes it a bit more narrowly targeted than some of our other finalists. Finally, that seat height of 16” will be problematic for at least a segment of the potential market for this chair. Maybe not a huge swath, but it does further limit the market.
Overall, we love it, though, and assuming none of the things we mentioned above are deal-breakers for you; this chair deserves a spot on your shortlist for consideration. We recommend it.
Also Great
Modway Engage Mid-Century Modern
Recommended For: Anyone looking for an oversized accent chair.
If you’re a fan of retro, fifties styling, then you’re going to love our fourth-place entrant, offered by Modway. Haven’t you heard of Modway? They’re a smallish brand, but they’ve been in the game for a long time. While they might not be a household name, they do have a reputation for making low-cost, good-looking furniture of decent quality, and their Mid-Century accent chair is an excellent example of their work.
Before we say more, let’s continue our tradition of reviewing the basic stats that define this model. Here they are:
These numbers all work very well together. Note that this chair has a higher maximum supported weight limit than our top three picks. Granted, it’s only forty pounds more, but that could mean the difference between the chair being a viable option or not for some people.
Also, note that the seat dimensions are an excellent fit for the maximum supported weight and that the seat height is solidly in the big and tall territory at 19”. Finally, while this is a sizeable piece of furniture, it’s light enough that if you decided you wanted to move it around the room, or even to another part of your house, you could do that without particular difficulty and probably without getting any assistance.
Even better, if you decide you want one, Modway sells this chair in a dozen different color options. They sell matching furniture, too, including a sofa and a love seat, so if you wanted to go crazy and decorate your entire living room in a fifties throwback theme, you could totally do that. Best of all, you could do it without spending a ton of money. Since Modway has its chairs manufactured in China and imported here for sale, its products are delightfully low-priced.
Granted, the quality of Modway furniture isn’t on par with the other chairs we’ve talked about, but it’s not horrible, either. Say what you want about Chinese manufacturing, but their quality has ticked up considerably in recent years.
They’re basically following the same arc that Japan did. There was a time when nobody wanted anything the Japanese made because it was all regarded as junk. Japanese products are synonymous with quality, and China is also moving down that road.
Where comfort and upholstery are concerned, there are no surprises here. These chairs rely on conventional block foam padding with low-cost, low-quality polyester fabric stretched over them.
There’s nothing wrong with the block foam. It’s standard fare where seat padding is concerned. Here, you’ll find an impressive six inches of it, making it more than comfortable enough for occasional seating and even pretty comfortable for longer duration seating in a pinch.
The upholstery is a bit of a disappointment but not really a surprise. Undoubtedly, polyester was chosen because it’s inexpensive, which helps keep the cost of the chair down. It’s also authentic to the period, which in that regard is a nice touch.
Unfortunately, it’s not very durable or breathable and will probably start showing its age after only about a year of moderate daily use. When it does, you’ll be faced with a tough decision. Do you want to have the chair reupholstered, or just replace it?
With every other chair we’ve talked about to this point, the answer to that question was simple. The frames of the higher-ranking chairs are all of such high quality that it’s a no-brainer. Redo the upholstery and extend the life of your chair.
Here, it mostly comes down to how well you’ve taken care of the frame. If it’s still holding together well and hasn’t turned rickety on you, then it’s probably a safe bet. If the frame is starting to show its age too, then you’re better off just investing in something else.
We love the mid-century styling and think these chairs are awesome, but we realize that not everyone will agree. Even so, there are enough people out there with a sense of nostalgia that we have no problems giving this chair a solid recommendation. It’s a fun, budget-friendly design you’ll be pleased with.
Joybase Mid-Century Retro Accent Chair
Recommended For: Anyone weighing up to 440 pounds who love the mid-century look and feel of this chair.
This little chair, offered by Joybase, is a fantastic option to round out our list of finalists with. Joybase is a tiny online retailer that imports a wide range of products from China for resale here. They tend to stick with lower quality, low-cost items, which makes this chair a great choice for anyone on a budget.
Before we say more, let’s continue on as we have, by doing a quick stats review:
These numbers are generally okay, but there are two potential problems. First, we love the impressive amount of weight the chair supports. It’s tied for first place in that regard with our fourth-place winner, Modway. Unfortunately, where the rest of Modway’s dimensions were a good pairing with the chair’s maximum supported weight, these numbers aren’t nearly as good a fit.
The seat is quite narrow, and if you’re even close to the chair’s 440-pound weight limit, you’ll want to take a quick measurement to be sure you’ll fit comfortably into it. In our view, this would be a much stronger model if the seat width and depth values were swapped, which would make it roomy enough to accommodate people very close to the chair’s maximum supported weight limit.
Another potential problem is the low seat height. Bearing in mind that big and tall chairs typically have 18” or higher seat heights, this is quite low. If you suffer from mobility issues, you may struggle to get into and out of this chair. On the other hand, if you’re shorter and heavier, this model is perfect for you.
In terms of comfort, Joybase sticks to the basics, utilizing modest amounts of block foam, upholstered with polyester fabric. Neither of these is a surprise for reasons we discussed when talking about the chair offered by Modway. There’s enough block foam to provide a decent seating experience, but you definitely won’t want to spend the day lounging in this chair; it just wasn’t designed for that.
As to the upholstery, polyester is the lowest common denominator. It and PU are the most common upholstery choices in low-cost furniture. While it’s reasonably attractive, it’s not terribly breathable or durable. Even if you take expert care of it, you’ll find that it starts showing its age after about a year of moderate daily use, or 18-24 months if you only use it a couple hours of each day.
The two real selling points here are:
- The fun, retro aesthetic
- The super low price
If you’re a fan of the retro look and you don’t have a lot of money to spend, and you only need a chair, this is a good option to consider (if you need a whole matching set, you’re better off getting the Modway we just talked about!). On that basis, we provisionally recommend it.
Wooden Mallet Dakota Valley Bariatric Guest Chair
Recommended For: Anyone looking for a simply designed accent chair with a high maximum supported weight limit.
Although this chair didn’t score quite high enough to earn a spot on our list of finalists, we wanted to at least give it a quick mention. At first glance, this isn’t an obvious choice for a home accent chair. It looks much more like the type of chair you’d find at your dentist’s office. Even so, if you’re a fan of the Spartan, minimalist aesthetic this chair offers, it’s a solid choice and is well worth considering.
It’s clear that the designers placed most of their emphasis on function over form. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and to its credit, this chair is offered in a staggering array of possible color combinations. The frame itself can be ordered in either light or medium oak, and you’ll find two dozen different upholstery options, both fabric and PU.
Of the two, we regard the chair’s fabric options as being significantly better than the PU options. They’re more breathable and more durable. Where the PU will start peeling and cracking after perhaps a year of moderate to heavy use, the fabric upholstery will hold up significantly longer.
As to stats, here are the core numbers that define the model:
These are very good numbers. The seat height and width are both great compliments to the impressive supported weight limit, but the standard caveat applies here. If you’re close to this chair’s maximum supported weight limit, you’ll want to take a quick measurement to be sure you’ll fit comfortably into the chair.
The main reason this chair deserves special consideration is the weight limit. It’s essentially double that of every other model on our list of finalists. That alone makes it well worth considering, even if you’re not a huge fan of the minimalist look and feel of the chair.
We actually like this model a lot more than its overall score indicates. It’s a rock-solid piece of furniture that will provide you with years of reliable service. The minimalist look might even work in its favor in some home décor schemes since it will tend to blend politely into the background with proper upholstery color selection.
Final Thoughts: Best High Weight Capacity Accent Chair Roundup Review
While we absolutely stand by the Jack chair by Jennifer Taylor as our top pick here in our roundup review of the best high weight capacity accent chairs, we understand that opinions will vary. Here then, are some of the reasons why one of our other finalists may be a better fit for you:
Ultimately, there’s no one right answer here. The only thing that matters is which of these is the best accent chair for you. While your top pick may differ from ours, we feel confident that your next accent chair is somewhere in this roundup review.
REFERENCES & RESOURCES
- 4 Best Tips For Decorating Around Accent Furniture, Elle Décor.
- 5 Easy Tips for Decorating With Accent Chairs, On Sutton Place.
- How to Choose the Right Accent Chair, Contour Interior Design.