Unlike its overpriced, designer, leather, vinyl, or hard plastic-trimmed counterparts, the wood bar stool unfortunately does not enjoy the degree of affection and admiration due it. Neither does it attract any of the snobby, pseudo-intellectual comments usually directed to its spidery chrome counterpart. Traditionally, the wood bar stool has been the preserve of old man pubs, sports bars, and home dining room breakfast counters amongst the aspiring middle classes. As a result, we may blame upon wood bar stools the mock, ridicule, and derision which bar stools in general have had to endure since the 1990s. How many times have we been in the furniture department of Walmart or Target only to hear some guy – in a voluminous tracksuit, sporting a crew cut and titanium-rimmed specs – cast a sorry but scornful look at some poor, defenseless wood bar stool, shake his head, and say loudly, “Oh my god! Check it out, man. Wood bar stools! That is so ’80s!”
Yee-ha!
But who, pray tell, was originally responsible for the homemade interior design travesty that was and could once again be the wood bar stool? In many countries around the western world,...