Since it’s almost the week-end, we’re inviting you to start relaxing. Yes, just smile and relax! And we’re trying to stimulate your smile by talking about some of the lovely furniture related Guinness World Records. And yes, these days we seem to have world records that are simply weird, so we’re pretty sure that they might become responsible for your amusement.

When it comes to tables, we found out that the longest is 1286,75 m long, 80 cm tall and 60 cm wide; this record was achieved in Finland and it’s quite recent – August 2014. In fact, another table record was broken this summer, except it was in June – the longest picnic table – 120,33 m long and able to feed about 480 people at a picnic in Greece. Also in June, but this time in Italy, a group of people managed to form the longest line of tables – 2000 m long and made up of 909, 2,2 m each.

When it comes to chairs, we can tell you that the lightest is holding on to its title since 2008, it weighs 0,617 kg, it was designed by the Italian Massimiliano Della Monaca and it passed all the durability tests required by the EN 1728:2000 standard. The biggest rocking chair is 12,83 m tall and 6,17 m wide; it’s also been around since 2008 and it belongs to Dan Sanzano, an American. Coincidence or not, we’re still talking about 2008 and the USA when it comes to the smallest of chairs, but small pieces come in collections of miniatures – thus, the biggest collection of chair miniatures belongs to Barbara Hartsfield and it includes 3000 pieces, collected in more than a decade.

But records are not always about size and sometimes they’re about value. The most expensive chairs ever sold at an auction settled the record in 1997, when an anonymous buyer offered about three million dollars for a pair of chairs designed by Robert Adam and manufactured by Thomas Chippendale. They were part of a set created in 1760 and they’re so valuable because they’re the combined work of two great names in the American furniture industry, both craftsmen of the 18th century.

And surely not least, since chairs were designed for sitting, it’s only natural that we have a record about this, too. So, 2013 was the year that gathered 1666 people at an event in China and this massive group settled the record for most people sitting on one chair. However, some people can’t simply sit on a chair and that’s probably why Luo Jun, a Chinese acrobat, insisted on getting into the Guinness Book of Records in 2007 by balancing on a stack of 11 chairs. And then there are those for whom sitting, balanced or not, is simply not an option – 402 of these people gathered in Belarus, in August 2014, and participated in a 30 minute chair-based fitness event that focused on kettle-bell lifting.

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