Suspension from ceilling...

I'd not thought of that :/

Agreed.

Agreed. I'm not sure atm.

It was.

It's not wood - some kind of plastic tile over at least a layer of concrete, but it sounds hollow to me, so I figured it probably wasn't solid enough to fix to directly.

Thanks, that's close to what I might have tried, so it's good to hear someone suggest it isn't obviously insane :)

I'll get a chance to investigate the structure soon - will probably have to pull down a small chunk of ceiling in a cupboard area.

Thanks again,

Her idiot servant might not have either ;)

It's either cast in situ concrete (a lot more than an inch) or prefabricated concrete floor beams (don't know if that was used in the

No, my daughter doesn't weight that much but my son is 6'6" and not very thin and he sat on it at times.

Quite a lot of flats of that age have concrete plank floors of some type and the ceiling below is plasterboard on battens.

If you can't hang from your ceiling beams, then attach some vertical steels to the walls and a horizontal beam across them, and hang the chair from that.

It'll probably look more Vauxhall than Old Compton Street though.

I do seem to remember 1970s wicker "bubble" chairs that could be hung from the ceiling - some of them had metal stands. Something like a banana hook on steroids.

Owain

No, just get a big kick-arse Hilti.

Usual difference between policy and detail.

Owain

Is said chair designed to be hung from the ceiling in the first place? If so, I'm sure the manufacturers would have done the calculations before they started to sell it. Too risky to do otherwise? Could you contact them.

Why don't you sneak into the flat above when they are away and install a large bolt from there? :-)

That's probably the most important thing. In general the lease is likely to regard the space between one man's ceiling and another man's floor as "common parts"; you will have rights to run services in the space but anything else will require agreement from landlord/head leaseholder.

There's the usual sort of vague warning about using the right fixings. I haven't attempted to contact the manufacturer though.

I think I'll pass on that suggestion, but thanks for, um, trying :)

Thanks for the comments.

Not as ugly as a full steel frame from the floor up, but still probably not in keeping enough with existing decor, not that we're exactly talking designer either. I'll keep this in mind as a possibility. Thanks.

Yeah, that was actually an option, but we figured a ceiling mount would be less space consuming & less ugly than a stand. Erm, yeah. Maybe the stand was a good idea.

It looks to be concrete, as I describe in another post.

It does seem to be either solid concrete or concrete planks.

I don't know how I could have been so unobservant to have not noticed before, but...

The floor seems to be some sort of brittle plastic (not tiles - I imagine it was poured over the concrete & set in situ), around

Further, going into a cupboard to pull down a chunk of ceiling, I discover that cupboard has no such ceiling. Instead it appears to be solid concrete & sits nearly 2.5" higher than the plasterboard ceiling in the adjacent room - so I assume our main ceiling is indeed plasterboard on battens, themselves perhaps 1.5" deep, fixed directly to the concrete.

What sort of thickness is the concrete likely to have?

Then I ought to be able to remove a small section of plasterboard & fix an eye bolt into the concrete?

Can you suggest a suitable diameter & length to give a secure fixing - I've never had to fix anything this substantial into brick or concrete or where the fixing is vertical & vertically loaded?

How should the bolt be secured into the concrete?

Something like this:

A quick setting expanding cement.

Any idea where I'd get a small quantity of that or something similar? Is it the kind of thing one can pick up in a diy store? I don't have transport & our only local option is a couple of B&Qs.

Thanks again to everyone for all the helpful replies.

No - something like this

You drill the hole and push it in, and then rotate the end. This pulls the wedge-shaped nut into the tube and expands it - making a firm fixing in the hole. The one shown has a hook on the end, but you can also get them with an eye instead. They come in various sizes.