Stop! Don’t Shop for Kitchen Bar Stools…

…unless you know what theme you have in mind.

There are so many kitchen bar stools on the market, in showrooms and in online galleries that you might start out knowing exactly what you wanted and lose yourself somewhere along the way. So decide if you want chrome or wood stools, counter-height bar stools or stepstools - which by the way are fantastic because they have two layers, and the bottom part folds out – but the point is it’s easy to get distracted. Like me!

And why am I bothering to write about kitchen counter stools? I know it’s not the kind of thing that has earth shattering consequences should you choose the wrong stool with the wrong seat cushion color or the wrong bar stool height. So just because I’ve just spent about a million hours researching bar stools, I’m making everyone else read about it! Not quite.

My love affair with kitchen bar stools began a long time ago (and that is another story on another blog), but the quest for some interesting kitchen stools or counter stools for my kitchen island became an urgent need (all things being relative) when I purchased an antique house (I mean a total ruin of a house) in Andalucía, Spain.

After a year of grueling remodeling efforts, removing ceilings and walls that had previously been animal corrals, the kitchen area became a bright open space with potential for a large kitchen island (which incidentally I had made from hardwood and hand carved in Belgium), but finding the bar stools to match such an unusual island was a crazy task.

Since much of my décor will be - oriental having just come back from 10 years in Asia and Spanish/French because that’s what I am, and Belgian because that’s where I can buy loads of great stuff, and Classic Andalucía Rustic Country because that’s the actual style of the house, and with a Contemporary Chinese twist because my sister keeps sending me stuff from Taiwan, and with a dash of Polish Post War because of my Polish husband - and not at all minimalist, I decided to counsel everyone to NOT do what I’m doing and PLEASE PICK A THEME!

So while I’m doing a mishmash of all themes in my kitchen, my research has served to sort out the main categories of counter bar stools, swivel counter stools, leather counter stools and to know what the difference is between a backless counter stool and a saddle seat stool and what is the ideal height of kitchen counter bar stools versus a bar table stool and how to find a kitchen counter stool that is modern yet without being futuristic and…where to buy the best of everything.

So in my many posts floating out in cyberland, I’m sharing this newly gleaned information with you so you can go straight to the fun part…sitting on your stools!