Safety aside, experts in the furniture industry say that you will lessen the life of that chair if you put your weight on only two legs of the chair.

This will reduce friction with the floor when you push yourself away from the table and at the same time reduce the stress on your flooring. For those of us who still spend time dining, paying bills or doing homework at the table in our kitchen or dining room, we need to heed mom's advice. You have surely heard it from your mother when sitting at the kitchen table, you lean back in one of your chairs to have only two chair legs touching, and she says, "All four on the floor please." There is actually something to that old saying. Also, consider using glides on the bottom of the chairs. It is best to use felt glides for a hard floor and vinyl glides if the chairs. Some estimate 50 80% of the life a chair is lost when you regularly lean back.

Of course, the heavier we Americans get the less likely our chairs will hold out like they did for grandma, especially when we jeopardize the structural integrity by leaning back on two legs.