Furniture Friday: A Built-in Kitchen Stool, or Two

I'm a fairly short person, barely making 5' .25" at my last doctor's visit.  So, as we were discussing kitchen counter heigths with our architect (my father-in-law), the builder, and his cabinet maker, I wanted to make sure that when baking and cooking, I wouldn't have to constantly move my recipe to the table (which is the perfect height for mixing and kneading).

In my childhood home, there was a "baking counter" that was about four inches shorter than the regular counters in the kitchen.  It was fantastic!  We considered this option first in our new kitchen layout.  Luckily, our builder pointed out that because our kitchen is a symmetrical open concept, visually it would look strange to have one part of the countertop shorter than the rest.

Perusing Pinterest, I saw the idea of having a rolling cabinet under the countertops.  I thought that I would just do that and be able to work on that shorter counter. But the cabinet carpenter pointed out that it would be difficult to make that stable and completely immovable and it could easily tip.

Finally, our builder suggested placing a hinged "table" on one side of the kitchen island where I could mix and knead to my hearts content.  I didn't LOVE the idea, but sure, it could work well.  The cabinet guy thought he could make it stable enough and we left it at that.

But, you know, I didn't love it!  During that night, however, I thought of an idea I'd seen in my brother-in-law's home.  He had taken the kick plates off of his cabinets and installed drawers for things like cookie sheets and large spatulas, etc and it made me wonder if instead of drawers, a stool could be built.

Both the builder and the cabinet guy thought it could easily be done.

I love how they turned out! We've been in our home for six months and my kids, their cousins, and I have used these stools again and again!  I almost use them every day.