I am usually always sitting , either my wheelchair or I have a very nice rolling chair that is height adjustable . My new kitchen has a large rolling island that I will sit at for most prep work . Even when I could get around well I liked to have a seat available to rest on occasion . My mom's kitchen had a table and chairs but we had one of those metal chairs that had the pull out steps so it became a step ladder . Some one was usually perched up on it .

In the old kitchen, I used a wooden stool (on occasion) that I kept in a corner--it was purchased at a flea market, for a couple of dollars, when I was pregnant with my first baby, and was used often throughout my pregnancies. Now I have swing stools attached to the island. I usually stand to prep, but it's nice to take a break once in a while.

The old stool sits in a corner of the dining room, waiting until I need it someday when I can no longer stand for extended periods.

Chairs are just at the kitchen table, not used for prep. I do have a lone stool (no island or peninsula seating) that I use to perch on when I want to sit while cooking.

ravencajun those really were the best chairs. My Mom had one that she kept tucked into a shelf that was her catchall area.

I have never sat while meal preparing. Wouldn't occur to me.

I always stand. Like cpartist, it would never occur to me to sit.

We had one of those retro stepladder chairs growing up. It sits in my sister's house nowadays. She uses it as a stepladder primarily. I've often thought of getting one myself.

When I had migraines I had a high stool to perch on when cooking and I couldn't stand or walk. If I sat on a regular chair I'd fall asleep and fall off. Not conducive to kitchen safety or cooking at all. Glad those days are gone, and hopefully for good. I stand for everything except driving and in restaurants because I can. :).

I have one just like it in green, right here in my basement! It was my mother's - purchased for our new house in 1951. She sometimes sat on it at the stove or the sink (if peeling things), and she always hauled it to the basement to use for ironing. Considering how heavy the danged thing is, I don't know how she got it up and down the basement steps. I think in time, it pretty much lived in the basement.

I wish I knew what happened to the one mom had. I would love to have it

You can still buy them ravencajun.

I have happy recollections of sitting with my great grandmother and shelling peas and stringing beans and I don't know if the reason we were sitting is because she was so old or because her kitchen had virtually no counter space. Now you can hardly buy beans that you need to string or peas that you need to shell... that reduced prep time is probably why I never thought of sitting down in the kitchen until recently - when I began to consider a new step stool to reach my upper cabinets.

My mother also had one of those stools, and I remember her sitting in front of the pull-out chopping board while snapping beans or peeling fruit to can. Later kitchens there really was no place to use it. My grandmother had a table in her kitchen and a stool was one of the chairs, use the same way.

I have a smaller wooden chair that lives in front of the pantry, it is light and easy to move out of the way when needed (I don't have any other place to stow it) and doubles as my step stool for the high cabinets. It has taken over for the metal stepstool because it is lighter, and since it is a pretty blue I don't mind leaving it out whereas the stool I have to haul over to the basement stairwell. One of these days I will attempt to retrofit toekick drawers, and will get a stool that fits in there.