In the pursuit of the perfect stool

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January 23rd, 2014

I bought these stools at the Christie Antique show last spring for $30 to put in my new kitchen….

Here they are…

I thought for $30 you can’t go wrong! I can reupholster them, clean up the legs and they’ll be good. I had great intentions but once I put them in the kitchen it wasn’t working for me and they were very uncomfortable!!

I needed to find new stools! I had to first figure out the height, counter or bar? Well here is a handy guide from F. G. Bradley’s that helps with this decision:

Our island counter stands 35″ high, so we are looking for a counter height stool.

How many?

I was pretty sure I needed 3 but to make sure I had to do some measuring… Apartment Therapy suggests taking your counter length and divide by the width of your stool plus 5 inches. Of course if the stool swivels or has arms you would want to give a bit more space. My counter length is 65″ so when I divided it by 21 (16 was the average width that I was looking at + 5) it gave me 3! F. G. Bradley’s provides another handy graphic to help:

Materials

You need to consider how you expect to use them and what look you are going for. When you look into the room, do you want the stool to stand out? or do you want to be able to tuck it away neatly? Are you looking for a stool with a cushion or maybe a metal finish? If you are unsure, I would check out Houzz. You can simply search for ‘stools’ and you can view thousands of rooms. Also, you have to consider comfort. If you are putting these in your dining area you will want the back support so that your guests will be able to eat their meal and hang out for a few drinks. Since my area is an open concept, I need to be able to tuck it under the counter and I do want the comfort of a cushion.

Now to look for the perfect stool….

On the top of my interior furnishing wish list is buying a piece from Sarah Richardson’s Custom Furniture line. I fell in love with the Jake Backless Stool when I saw them in the kitchen from Sarah’s House 4.

I knew they would fit perfectly in my kitchen so I went for it. The first thing I had to do was pick a fabric.  I wanted to use something from SR’s Kravet line but which one?

I do love the diamond Brookhaven pattern but I would be really committing to this pattern because I wouldn’t be reupholstering these stools for a long time. So I decided to go with the more subtle Highpoint pattern in Oyster (right). Once I had the fabric in hand from Designer Fabrics, I met with Senior designer, Natalie Hodgins to place the order.

I was definitely nervous meeting her but I was immediately put at ease as she was very sweet and professional. She even complimented our kitchen by saying that it “looked fantastic”. It felt so unreal to me that I was standing in the Sarah Richardson Design office talking to Natalie!

It took me 6 months but I definitely found the perfect stool for our home. The stools should be ready sometime in the spring! Once I have them I will be able to do a final reveal of the Kitchen and Living Room!