The perfect stool

Do you want to go on a stool journey with me?

What’s the perfect chair? Or in this case, a stool, but it was important to contextualise it as a chair-y stool, not a poo-y stool.

To me, the absolute essence of a stool is this:

• Has leg/s to reliably hold the seat off the ground

• Has a place for you to reliably sit your bum

This is a stool:

This is the Marius stool from IKEA

But then, by the logic of steady legs and a place to put your bum, this is also a stool:

The Lack coffee table, also from IKEA

This lovely man has also found himself a nice stool to sit on:

Regrettably, you cannot buy this stool from IKEA

So then this means that we need to refine our understanding of the stool. I’d add to this:

• Has leg/s to reliably hold the seat off the ground and does not move in any way.

• Has a place for you to reliably sit your bum (aforementioned seat), and when seated, most of your bum takes up that seat.

Typically a stool also doesn’t have a back or anything else to it; it’s a bit of an addition. We don’t need it.

All stools

The stool as a side table

A stool can very closely mimic the function of a side table. As side tables are to coffee tables, stools are to chairs.

All of them are side tables, but almost all of them look like stools. The main difference is that some of them might not be able to hold human weight. But they have some sort of legs and some sort of capacity to hold a human-sized butt on them.

We interchange things as stools and tables and places to put things all the time:

This is a tutorial for one thing but you decide if it’s a table OR a stool

This is a step ladder that someone is calling a stool

The beauty of a stool is that it is a multifaceted tool that you can use to put basically anything on. Unhindered by a chair back, and freed by the fact you can put human weight (sometimes more than human weight!) on top of the stool.

It’s hard to think of a more beautifully utilitarian piece of furniture than the stool

The humble stool toils away for us and switches its task as we need.

A seat for your bum, a table, a ladder, a place to put your stuff, even something that you put your feet on when you’re in the toilet to get in the right position to excrete a different kind of stool.

This is literally called a toilet stool

What’s the perfect stool?

A perfect stool then, must be this:

• Has leg/s to reliably hold the seat off the ground and does not move in any way.

• Has a place for you to reliably sit your bum (aforementioned seat), and when seated, most of your bum takes up that seat.

• Is a multi-use stool tool, which makes itself useful in scenarios other than just sitting on; and becomes a practical, functional asset in your house. At some times, the stool’s utilitarian nature becomes so much that it is used as a tool more than as the primary function of a stool. But when called back to its primary task, will never let you down.

IKEA has the perfect stool

Many perfect things do not exist in this plane of existence. A lot of them exist only in our minds, or in the minds of people we do not know. But the perfect stool has been created, it’s called Oddvar, and it’s $10 at IKEA.

I got this stool almost a decade ago as a poor uni student barely working a job but in need of furniture. This was the perfect stool because it was the cheapest stool IKEA had at the time. It is one of my favourite belongings in the world.

Oddvar is the Swiss Army Knife of the stool world

Though this is an insult to Oddvar; the SAK has different attachments to make it useful. Oddvar simply exists in a solid state, and yet surprises me every few months with a new use.

• Right now, it’s the reliable shelf to a Nintendo Switch, because I’ve moved house and don’t yet have an entertainment unit

• It’s a ladder: the perfect height for that weird cupboard above your fridge which is just too hard to reach

• Somehow it’s always the right height to sit at any table, desk, or bench

• As a coffee table, you can’t eat a whole meal on it, but is big enough to put your tea, wine, or water on it comfortably (also all of them)

• A perfect side table to your coffee table

Disappointing: IKEA doesn’t sell it anymore

Every time I go to IKEA I go to the stool section to find another Oddvar to go with my vintage Oddvar. But they’re not there.

All these stools, and none of them are Perfect

So, dear reader, I don’t know what to do. Perhaps petition to bring it back. Maybe get it shipped from another country.’

All I know is, if you are in the market for a stool, nothing will be as good as ❤️ Oddvar ❤️

Love,
Sam