People used to hang chairs on walls.

Chairs for restoration hanging on a wall
Credit: Johner Images/Alamy
Author Nicole Villeneuve
October 20, 2026

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If you’ve ever gotten frustrated watching a robot vacuum repeatedly ram itself into a chair leg, you might have liked spending time in an 18th-century Shaker home. 

The Shakers were a religious group founded in England in 1747, and many emigrated to the American colonies, where they lived communally and shared nearly every aspect of daily life. Cleanliness, order, and efficiency were more than practical preferences; they were part of the Shakers’ belief that their communities should reflect the order and purity of heaven.

That philosophy found its way into their furniture. Shaker homes were fitted with long wooden peg rails on the walls where residents could hang clothing, tools, baskets, and even chairs. When it was time to sweep, chairs could simply be lifted off the floor and hung on the wall. Shaker chairs were even specially designed to be lightweight.

Hanging chairs on the walls saved space in homes that were full, and it also made cleaning easier and kept rooms orderly. Chairs were hardly the only thing Shakers designed around their guiding principles: They also worked to improve already utilitarian tools and machinery, including brooms and washing machines.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

We have the Shakers to thank for the seed packets we buy in stores.

Before the Shakers got involved, buying garden seeds was a much messier affair — seeds were commonly sold loose in bulk. Then, in the late 1700s, the Shakers became the first to put them into paper packets. At the Mount Lebanon Shaker community in New York alone, nearly 1 million seed packets were cut, printed, and filled between 1834 and 1840. This was made more efficient thanks to the special seed chisel tool the Shakers also developed, which sped up the process of cutting paper into the right shapes for the packets.

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