Why Martha Stewart Never Uses Upholstered Kitchen Chairs (And What She Uses Instead)

With nearly 50 years and counting of sharing her home and lifestyle expertise with the world, Martha Stewart is someone we always take advice from on matters like kitchen decor. The author, entrepreneur, and television personality is known not only for her discerning taste but also for her know-how when it comes to making our daily routines at home more effective and stress-free. So, it's no surprise that one of Stewart's best kitchen-design tips you'll want to steal combines aesthetics with convenience. The tip in question? Eschewing upholstered chairs in the kitchen.

In an interview with Frederic Magazine, Stewart reveals that she prefers wooden chairs and stools because she likes "things that are easy to clean and wipe up." Amen to that — cleaning upholstery is doable, sure, but can require all manner of tools, solutions, and steps. That's not a process you want to go through with any sort of frequency. Think about the average mealtime at your house and the spills and stains you're already scrubbing on a regular basis.

Solid seating, meanwhile, is a snap to clean with a microfiber cloth and gentle soap or wood cleaner. You can even use Stewart's own cheap, DIY kitchen-cleaning hack and wipe down your hard-surfaced kitchen chairs with a vodka-and-water solution. It's refreshing to learn that even the queen of elevated decor doesn't bother with furniture that's too fussy — a clean kitchen is a stylish kitchen, after all, and a space you'll feel happier in.

You may be disappointed to realize how high-maintenance upholstered kitchen chairs indeed could be, considering that current kitchen-design trends are leaning toward coziness and cottage-inspired charm. For one thing, no trend is worth the relentless work of keeping fabric chairs clean in one of the most high-traffic, potentially messy areas of your home. Who knows how long the chairs would even hold up before needing to be replaced? Secondly, it's incredibly easy to still create the warm, welcoming kitchen of your dreams without soft materials in that one specific area.

Wooden chairs, in fact, could be one of the best ways to bring together a rustic kitchen aesthetic. You can let them set the tone for the dining area and play up their look with rich touches of texture courtesy of pieces that are easy to swap out and clean, like tablecloths and runners, placemats, fabric napkins, and cushions — you can even throw chunky-knit blankets over a bench seat or high-backed chair in the winter.

Think vintage, too: dining chairs are a great item to thrift. You can curate a selection of mix-and-match antique chairs as long as they're in the same overall style and color palette, which would achieve an artfully eclectic look even more effectively than upholstered seats could. An ideal compromise between function and form, choosing chic but easy-to-clean kitchen chairs is one of our favorite old-school kitchen-design ideas from Stewart.