How tall should an antique bar stool be?

Most sit at around thirty inches high to work with a standard commercial counter. This leaves enough room for your legs under the rim. Shorter examples are usually old draughtsman stools rather than tavern pieces. It pays to measure your counter clearance before buying.

I bought a set of tall wooden stools and the seats have big splits down the middle, is this normal for their age?

Wide wooden seats expand and contract with changes in humidity. Over decades in centrally heated rooms, the timber shrinks across the grain and opens up along the old glue lines. These splits are a standard reaction to modern home environments. They rarely affect the structural strength of the seat if the base joints remain tight.

Can you lower antique wooden stools?

Cutting the legs down alters the proportions and removes the historic wear on the feet. You also risk throwing off the relationship between the seat and the footrest. The sitter might find their knees resting too high.

The metal swivel plates on my diner stools are really stiff when you turn them, can they be fixed or oiled safely?

Old steel ball bearings dry out when the factory grease degrades into a hard paste. Rust also builds up inside the concealed metal housing over the decades. Taking the mechanism apart allows you to clean out the old debris. A standard lithium grease usually gets them turning smoothly again without damaging the metal.

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Antique Bar Stools

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Tall seats originally built for commercial taverns and early twentieth-century cocktail lounges, featuring long legs and a footrest to elevate the sitter to counter height.