Several years ago I attended a Sunday service at a large church in Florida while I was on vacation and I saw for the first time a worship environment filled with worship chairs, but church chairs that were upholstered in two different fabrics. As I gazed across this auditorium that had a capacity of around 1500 people, the two different fabrics were interspersed in a totally non-patterned manner. One fabric was an Espresso (a darker fabric with black and brown interweaving) while the other fabric was a Mixed Tan (a lighter fabric with two tones of tan interwoven). As I looked across this room with no discernible pattern as to how the two different fabric were intermixed, my first ruminations were, “Why did they do this? Did they combine chairs they had from their old facility with new ones they purchased for this facility to save dollars? Or was this by design?”
Later I was able to connect with one of the staff members at this church and I asked him about the mixing of fabrics in their worship area. He responded by saying, “Our design firm shared with us that by doing this we could create the sense of a larger room than we actually have. We decided to take them at their word and to this point we believe we have accomplished our goal!”
Since that first exposure to multiple chair fabrics in the same worship environment, we have had many churches share with us a similar desire. We have witnessed a trend in this direction. Recently we provided a church in Adrian, Michigan 550 worship chairs and they actually purchased four different fabrics in varying quantities. They were removing pews from their worship area and replacing them with church chairs. But because their room seemed a little closed in, they wanted to also accomplish making the room feel larger.
This church just completed their project and was kind enough to send us some pictures of the completed project. Since I have personally visited this church on more than one occasion, I believe they certainly achieved their goal! The transformation of their worship environment from a room that seemed somewhat dark, crowded and closed in, to one that is cheerful, spacious and open, really is quite remarkable. For a church considering doing something similar for their own worship area, we would be glad to put you in contact with churches that have gone on before you with such an endeavor.
So enjoy these images of this project! And if you have church seating needs (or other furnishing needs) Church Furniture Partner would love to assist your church as well! Just contact us and we’ll get started!