Yeah, I realized that my posts could be read to sound like if you don't pre-measure the load-bearing capacity of all your furniture on a daily basis, you are a bad person. Obviously that is not true, you may not know in advance what furniture is trustworthy, and you are allowed to have furniture you like in the house, and sometimes you honestly forget the missing riser is there until someone steps through it. But the fault is still not on the guest for expecting to be able to sit on a chair in a space they were invited into.
However, if you are expecting people over? It is your responsibility as a host to provide a space where they can exist comfortably. If you know in advance that you have furniture you don't want your expected guests to use, it's fairly basic to make sure that furniture is in a room where you won't be receiving them, or that it's obvious to them that the furniture is not for sitting on (via, for example, a doll or a neat pile of vintage linens occupying the seat. My aunt owned a collectible doll for the sole purpose of sitting on her fancy chair so nobody else could. Or even a sign that says "Broken, do not sit" like my friend remembers to put on her booby-trapped chair about half the times she has visitors over, and takes the blame the other half.)
This doesn't only apply to weight - when you go to Great-Aunt Lucille's by invite and she asks you into the parlor and then won't let you sit on her nice couch until she puts down newspaper, or says "Please don't let the toddler touch that chair, it's a *valuable antique* and toddlers are so *clumsy*", she is also being a bad host.
If you want to have a house full of things that half your guests can't touch, and then overreact when they do, you're allowed to, but you are also allowed to be the person who people only visit under severe duress.
Also, about weight specifically (but also parents with small kids and people with disabilities) - people who know they are at risk of breaking furniture probably have a *much* more finely-tuned sense than you do of how sturdy a chair is. If the chair doesn't, like, have missing screws or hidden termite damage they couldn't know about, they have probably made a very considered judgement from long experience that it's a chair that's safe for them, and are probably more accurate about it than you are.
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However, if you are expecting people over? It is your responsibility as a host to provide a space where they can exist comfortably. If you know in advance that you have furniture you don't want your expected guests to use, it's fairly basic to make sure that furniture is in a room where you won't be receiving them, or that it's obvious to them that the furniture is not for sitting on (via, for example, a doll or a neat pile of vintage linens occupying the seat. My aunt owned a collectible doll for the sole purpose of sitting on her fancy chair so nobody else could. Or even a sign that says "Broken, do not sit" like my friend remembers to put on her booby-trapped chair about half the times she has visitors over, and takes the blame the other half.)
This doesn't only apply to weight - when you go to Great-Aunt Lucille's by invite and she asks you into the parlor and then won't let you sit on her nice couch until she puts down newspaper, or says "Please don't let the toddler touch that chair, it's a *valuable antique* and toddlers are so *clumsy*", she is also being a bad host.
If you want to have a house full of things that half your guests can't touch, and then overreact when they do, you're allowed to, but you are also allowed to be the person who people only visit under severe duress.
Also, about weight specifically (but also parents with small kids and people with disabilities) - people who know they are at risk of breaking furniture probably have a *much* more finely-tuned sense than you do of how sturdy a chair is. If the chair doesn't, like, have missing screws or hidden termite damage they couldn't know about, they have probably made a very considered judgement from long experience that it's a chair that's safe for them, and are probably more accurate about it than you are.