...to start being a little miffed at how friends' weight affects my decoration choices?

[AlmostChristmas2019]

That really. We have a couple of friends who weigh 21+ stones and it affects what furniture we can feasible get.

We just moved and this is the second time this is really starting to bug me.

A few examples:
...I have chucked out my top 5 choices of dinning chairs, because they either couldn't take that weight and/or had armrest that would literally dig into their bodies.
...changed my choice of sofa so it can support multiple obese people.
...did not get a shoe bench because their weight crashed the last one after a couple of uses (yes, that was the issue)
...tried to get an airbed that would support the weight of two obese people safely for occasional overnight stays (e.g. New Years) - found one that was tested to a high weight but apparently, even then they are likely to pop. American Amazon was a scary eye-opener.
...holding off on new Garden chairs, as the ones that they can sit on are pricier than the ones I'd usually get (shared, very social garden, so not looking for anything fancy) - which means we barely used the garden since moving.
....all of the options suitable for heavy people are way pricier

I do want my guests to feel welcome, I really do. I am just so over having to check the maximum weight every time I look at furniture that is meant to support human bodies in some way.

It doesn't help that most of them are friends DH kind of brought into the relationship and which I have neither a paricularly good nor bad friendship. They were all friends at uni and we are the people who live where it is easiest to meet for everyone. That is fine, I usually love a full house, but I feel so limited by someone else's choices right now*

DH does arrange to meet up out of our house with them more often now but that doesn't change the fact that our furniture needs to be able to support a good deal of weight relatively frequently. And I would feel hypocritical to say "no, you never get to bring your friends here" because I would have no issue with it if we didn't need specialised furniture.

Bottom-line: Am I being unreasonable for wanting to choose my furniture without having to think about the weight of people who do not live here?

-

• Not to go into too much detail here, because it is not relevant to my question, but as it is sure to be mentioned: I know obesity can have lots of underlying causes. Besides two of the people in question here, the cause is poor food choices + no exercise. They're quite open about it.

I used to weight 24 stone. I know exactly where OP is coming from. Id have to reinforce divans with extra wood. Id never have legs or wheels on my sofas as they would snap off or dig holes into the carpet. In work Id never sit on those metal no back legs moulded chairs as they would feel like they were about to snap.
Car suspension can also get damaged, carpets worn, just everything takes more wear and tear.
I feel for you OP

@WagtailRobin couldn't agree more.

Bean bags wouldnt work for my DM. She needs the support of the sofa to be comfortable and uses the sofa arms for leverage to get up again.
There is no way my DM would be able to get herself up again if she sat on a beanbag.
They dont offer any support when trying to stand, and I would be surprised if anyone who struggled with movement like my DM does would be able to get up again easily after sitting on one.

@WagtailRobin to be honest, you have no idea what you are talking about. Extreme overweight DOES break things. that has nothing to do with ridiculing, its a fact. Sofas, chairs and loo seats are usually the things that break, and it happens frequently. most furniture is aimed at average weight, not at extreme overweight. there is special furniture for that - both very expensive and fairly ugly. it is a choice people have to make if they have extremely overweight people in their life, and its not fun.

Wagtail Do you really think that everyone who has posted on here saying that their belongings have been broken by extremely overweight people is making it up? Honestly?
Stop being so defensive and goady.

WeBuiltThisBuffet's post makes perfect sense.

It's really surprising how many of you have delicate Queen Anne chairs in your house. You should get them valued, sell them and buy furniture from DFS.

Then you can have all your fat mates round.

Buy what you want.
I won't buy furniture I don't like just cos it suits guests. I'm the one who has to live with it day in, day out, not the guests
If any guest breaks something in my house more than a glass or plate, they replace it. Simple. Even if they pay it off over time.

It must be quite unusual to have a group with that many morbidly obese people in it. At that weight they will all be very large.

In general furniture isn’t built to last anymore and weight won’t help. I broke a toilet seat when pregnant and I wasn’t even that heavy.

A lot of people arguing with physics on this thread. That always goes well. Also, look up the obesity stats. This scenario might not chime with your experience, but it's going to become more common.

@SafetyAdvice0FeedWhenAgitated I stand corrected! Gosh, that's an eye-opener. Fortunately I generally travel with only one person of the weight under discussion.

@Phineyj I thought it's more than 600kg too tbh. I just vaguely remembered that once we were pushing car out of snow in mountains someone mentioned "Bloody hell 2 and half ton doesn't move easily!"😂

We actually lost an off white Volvo estate in a mountain blizzard once

Found it by walking into it

@Phineyj 😂😂😂 That's awesome.

Perhaps book them into an air bnb, probably cheaper in the long term.
When my bil was about to visit I chkd the maximum weight for our shower cabin , he was just under, phew. He did break the toilet seat though.

Thank you all for your suggestions

Especially to the posters who suggested sturdier camping chairs, never new they existed! Means we can get the garden chairs I want and some of the camping ones.

Everything else is purchased and in our home by now. We like it well enough but I think everyone knows that feeling of falling in love with a piece of furniture and thinking "this is it!" and then having to let it go. Think at some point in the future we will get a carpenter to build our furniture and work from there but that is not really feasible at the moment.

It is a real concern. Friend of DH's wife is a size 34. She's damaged our car, furniture, and fittings before now. She complains regularly about things not being made well or a 'proper' size.

A chair should easuly take 21 stone I would have thought.

Sometimes it's not weight but how a person sits.
My ex average weight for his height wrecked sofas and beds.
Some just seem to just drop when they sit.
Others sit gentler.

I can understand why this is an issue for the op. Her stuff gets broken and even giving them the bill, it still needs to be replaced.

But seriously op, just get what you want. If it breaks give them the bill. Yea it will be awkward but personally I find that resentment builds until everything they do annoys you. Seems you are already there.

Hope your dh is charging them petrol money.

Don't let the loved thing go.

It's your home. You are welcoming by inviting guests in. When I buy a new sofa or something, I never think how some random will use it, will they be able to sit in it or whatever.
One of the reasons I have massive floor cushions. If a chair isn't suitable, or there are not enough chairs, the cushions can be used. And no I don't say - you back away from the chair and sit on the floor lol. Just apart from the dining chairs, and the sofa there's an extra seating option.

I made the cushions years ago with removable covers. And have made replacement covers over the years. I went to a place that made furniture and bought loads of foam and stuff. Patched them when needed. I stuffed old single duvets that had been cut in half, saves a load of sewing. Also did the same with beanbags and these live in the dc's rooms until needed.

I think it was mostly moving on the chairs that made them wobbly - nothing special, just gesturing while talking etc.

I had all my stuff from before I met DH back then but it was still new-ish when we moved in together. The chairs, sofa,... were quite robust, as most of the men I knew when I bought them were around 14-15 stone - or at least that is what I guessed - and I obviously didn't want dainty little chairs that would break at the sight of a feather (no, I didn't exclusively socialise with men, I just didn't factor the women in because they were around my weight or lighter, so not important in regard to my decorating choices). 14-15stone is quite average, though, so I got to buy whatever I wanted. However, I also didn't have anyone above that weight in my closer social circle so buying something even more stable hadn't factored into my furniture decisions pre-DH.

Sorry, forgot to add that was mostly for context because the chairs and the sofa I'm talking about are the ones I bought pre-DH, were fairly robust, but gave in when we moved in together.

I think I need more coffee to make sense today.

I'm laughing at the suggestions of bean bags!

Apart from them normally only being used by children/teenagers/pets or by older people as overflow seating (what adult would head for a beanbag when there's a vacant sofa or armchair that would be left empty?), plenty of slim or average-weight people wouldn't find getting into and back out of a beanbag particularly straightforward once they're maybe 40 or over.

How on earth do you expect obese people to be able to get down low to use a beanbag and then get up again with any dignity whatsoever (or even at all)?! You'd probably need to install a super-heavy-duty hoist in the ceiling above the beanbag for it to have any chance of working - and I'm not even saying that jokingly.

A chair should easuly take 21 stone I would have thought.

You'd think so - but 21 stone is the lightest person.

Some people here are recounting their experiences of 'larger' people, but how much larger is extremely pertinent here. Carrying an extra 2-3 stone above average isn't going to be a problem. If it's 20-30 stone above, it most certainly IS going to be.

What adult prefers a bean bag to the sofa?
Me for starters.
Nothing wrong with sitting on the floor. On the floor with a cushion perfect, a beanbag even better.

There's no rule to say who can and cannot sit on the floor. Only some idea people believe based on their own surroundings.

I have friends from different cultures. It's normal to see the 6-month-old babysitting on the floor with the 60year old nan. They have a couple of foldable chairs for people who cannot do it, or simply won't.

The sitting on floor outrage always makes me laugh because it makes no sense.