How To Choose The Perfect Seating For Your Kitchen Island

While you shouldn't have a kitchen island in a small kitchen, if your space is large enough to house one, it's a terrific piece of free-standing furniture that is both stylish (try and avoid this popular décor choice – heavy display items) and functional, especially if you can use it not just for prep and cooking, but also for casual dining. However, if you don't love your island seating, whether for aesthetic or comfort reasons (or both), it might be time to think about replacing it with something perfect. And for advice on how to do that, Food Republic turned to expert Heather Mastrangeli, a registered interior designer. "When selecting seating for a kitchen island, it's important to account for who is using the space, the space available for seating, and maintenance desires," she told us.

To the first point, Mastrangeli had particular recommendations for parents of small children: "I recommend stationary seating, not swivel, with a back for ease of use." Sticking with stationary seating, she continued, can help prevent damage to both the stool and the countertop, while a non-moving stool that has a back to it also prevents kids from falling.

If your home is just populated by adults, you should consider both the styles of the actual surface of the seat and the stool's back. Different types of curvatures in both "may or may not be comfortable from person to person," Mastrangeli explained.

Another facet of how comfortable actual humans will be when sitting at your kitchen island is how much room each stool allows for. "Always allocate at least 30 [inches] of space, per person, along the island or peninsula," Heather Mastrangeli dictated. Thirty inches per person, she said, is typically enough for a seated adult to be comfortable.

There's also the height of prospective stools to consider, too. Mastrangeli acknowledged how personal the choice of stool back heights is because you want them to be functional, but also look good. "Typically, base cabinets in a kitchen are 34.5 inches high," she said. She continued by telling us that if you have a stool-back that is less than 34 inches, to help make your kitchen look less cluttered, it should tuck away under the counter. A small back can still be supportive and give security to the person sitting on the stool. And, she added, "When a kitchen is visually busy, then I often recommend either a backless stool or a stool that has a very short back."

You should also consider the available knee space under the counter, with which your seat will leave you. If you only have the standard 12 to 15 inches of under-counter space, Mastrangeli suggested purchasing stools with smaller surface areas, so they don't stick out to a degree that looks strange.

Islands come in a variety of sizes, so hopefully you picked one that fits your kitchen well (or perhaps you even had space for two). If you have a longer kitchen island, according to Heather Mastrangeli, you could purchase chunkier or more heavy-looking stools, and they won't appear out of place. Mastrangeli recounted a 20-foot kitchen island that she designed for clients; "I selected a chunkier leather stool because it had a better visual presence in the space than a smaller-scale stool would have," she said, adding that it was quite comfortable, much to her clients' delight. And that's one of the additional pros of having a bigger island to work with; you can pick seating that's more like a traditional chair, which is oftentimes more comfortable than a mere stool.

It makes sense if you have a smaller kitchen island that you would want to populate it with smaller seats, but according to Mastrangeli, "You'll still need to allocate 30 inches along the countertop per person." For tighter spaces, she also recommended smaller stools that won't stick out into the rest of the kitchen space as much, while acknowledging that smaller seating will fit the area visually much better, too.