BH | Studio Dingle Low-Back Counter Stools, Set of 2

Sitting up at a counter is an old and sociable pleasure, as anyone who has pulled up a stool in one of Dingle's many pubs can tell you. The lunch counters and soda fountains of early twentieth-century America lined their stools up in front of the cook, and by the 1950s the breakfast bar had brought the same easy, perched way of eating and talking into the family kitchen.

The stool's four hardwood legs splay outward for stability, linked by a front footrest and side braces that give your feet a place to settle, and the seat rises into a low back that curls gently around you. The plywood seat is padded and covered in a heathered woven fabric in Teal or Cream, with flecks that give it depth, set off by a warm brown frame. At 24 inches the seat suits a standard counter or kitchen island, each stool is rated to hold 220 lbs, and some assembly is required.

Use a pair at a breakfast bar in a white kitchen, where Teal brings real colour and Cream keeps it light, with a fruit bowl and a stack of cookbooks close by, or at a coffee nook at the end of a counter. They suit a home bar or an entertaining space too. Either colour looks wonderful with white subway tiles, brass taps and warm wood, and a jug of yellow tulips on the counter makes the room sing. This listing is for a set of two stools.