Two inches decide a bar stool
Counter height and bar height are not a preference. They are a measurement, and confusing them is the most common furniture mistake in an American kitchen. A counter runs about thirty six inches. A bar runs about forty two. The stools built for them differ by roughly four inches of seat height, and a stool at the wrong one is unusable rather than merely uncomfortable.
Measure from the floor to the underside of the countertop, then subtract ten to twelve inches. That is your seat height, and it is the only number that has to be right. Everything after it is taste, and taste is where the rest of mid century modern furniture gets interesting.
Counter stools or bar stools, and the overhang nobody measures
Leave room for knees
The measurement people forget is the counter overhang. A lip of two inches gives you nowhere to put your legs, and a stool pulled six inches back from the counter stops being a seat at a counter and becomes a chair facing a wall. Twelve inches of overhang is comfortable. Six is tight. Less than that and the stools end up shoved against the base cabinets permanently.
How many stools actually fit
Allow roughly twenty six inches per stool across the run, centre to centre, if people are going to sit without touching elbows. Three counter stools at a seven foot island works. Four is a squeeze that photographs well and fails at dinner. The same arithmetic governs seating around a mid century modern dining table, and people get it wrong in both rooms for the same reason.
Backless bar stools, or a back
Backless counter stools disappear
A backless stool slides fully under the counter and the sightline across the kitchen stays clear. In an open plan where the kitchen is visible from the sofa, this matters more than comfort, because the stools are in view far more hours than they are sat in.
A back is for staying
A back turns a stool into somewhere you linger. If the counter is where homework happens or where people stay after dinner, take the back and accept that the kitchen reads busier from across the room. Arms push further in the same direction. In a mid-century modern dining room that already has chairs with arms, backless bar stools at the counter keep the two zones from competing.
Leather, iron, and what survives a kitchen
Leather bar stools earn their wear
Cognac, tobacco, buffalo and cowhide all darken where hands land, and in a kitchen that happens quickly. Most people end up liking it. Leather is the one upholstery that improves under abuse, and a counter stool absorbs more abuse than any other seat in the house.
Linen and woven seats are the softer choice and the harder one to live with near a stove. They belong in a pantry or at a bar that is genuinely a bar.
The frame decides the sightline
Iron keeps the footprint visually thin, which matters when four stools sit in a row. Four heavy wooden bases read as a fence across the room. The same four on slim iron legs let the floor run underneath, and the kitchen stays open. It is the same logic that makes tapered legs work on mid century modern dining chairs, just applied where the traffic is heavier.
Buy the stool height first
A handsome stool at the wrong height gets replaced inside a year. A plain one at the right height stays a decade and stops being something anyone notices. In a kitchen that is the goal. The stool is not the room, it is the thing that lets the room work, and the best version of it is the one nobody comments on.