Antique Green-Painted Country Stool, Solid Plank Seat & Turned Legs

That apple-green paint has been leaving for a long time — flaking back to bare wood in sheets, pooling in the turned rings, clinging to the stretchers in pale green islands — and the stool is better for it. What it reveals underneath is American elm, close-grained and dense, worked into four splay-legged turned columns joined by a mortised stretcher system that has held without shifting for well over a century. The seat — hewn from a single solid plank, 1¼" thick — has darkened to the color of old tobacco, worn to a frictionless smoothness that no amount of sanding achieves on purpose.

The scored, stained underside tells the story of where this stool lived: a farmhouse kitchen, a cobbler's corner, a milking barn, a country store — wherever a working person needed a low, solid perch at hand. The seat height puts it below standard chair height, squarely in the tradition of the country work stool — low enough for the floor-level tasks of a pre-industrial household, light enough to kick aside and grab again. The turned baluster legs carry the slight irregularity of a hand-operated lathe, each column close but not identical, the rings a little proud, the tapers cut by eye. Construction details and the character of the paint layer are consistent with late 19th to early 20th century American country furniture. That handwork, and a century of honest use, is exactly what makes it worth owning.

CONDITION

Good with age-appropriate wear throughout. Seat is worn smooth with deep patina and minor edge losses to the corners; the painted base shows heavy flaking and chipping to bare wood across all four legs and stretchers. Structurally sound and stable with no wobble.

DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS

• Overall: 17" H × 15" W × 11.5" D
• Seat Thickness: 1.25"
• Materials: Solid American elm, painted base
• Estimated Period: Late 19th–Early 20th Century
• Unmarked
• Campbell's Soup Can (4" H) Shown for Scale — Not Included