With the fall of the Roman Empire bathing was officially banned. Spiritual cleansing was deemed more important than the medicinal bath. Some of the bath complexes themselves were converted to churches while some of the elite aristocrat class could still take advantage of taking the waters. People in general avoided going anywhere near bathing. It was not uncommon for people to go for years without bathing. Makes you glad you didn't live back then doesn't it.
From the 13th century on, the baths began gradually to come back into favor. The Moors rebuilt the public spas as their influence spread across Europe, the relaxation and medicinal value came back in popularity.
Fear of disease and a lack of understanding about how it was spread led to another decline of the public baths in the 16th century. Fortunately a group of Italian physicians recovered some of the lost information on the therapeutic benefits of water treatments. By the end of the 1500's two of them Bacci and Minardo had published articles revisiting the value of the bath for sound healthy living. Bacci believed that in order to truly benefit a person needed to be able to to lead a quiet orderly life in pleasant surroundings with good food and wine. Unfortunately that ruled out most of the population since they had neither the time for leisure or the money for the other ingredients.
Around the beginning of the 1800's, the value of the spa was being rediscovered and "Taking the Waters" grew to include more of the general population. Doctors were convinced that Mother Nature had a remedy for everything that ailed us in the form of some mineral spring. The medicinal use and principles of thermal water (balneotherapy) and Hydrotherapy were recorded by Priessnitz and Kneipp. Kneipp took a holistic approach to the treatment of disease. With major spas and resorts focusing on serving the upper classes, Kneipp put his attention on the benefit to the common man.
Hotels began to appear all over Europe and North America as interest mineral water from natural springs became popular. Every spa resort had its own village sprout up around it complete with theater, casino and promenades alongside the bathing facility. The spa resorts became the place to be and be seen for the elite and a place for the artists to get their creative juices flowing. Baden Baden, Germany was the most famous and glamorous resort spa in Europe.
Unlike its overpriced, designer, leather, vinyl, or hard plastic-trimmed counterparts, the wood bar stool unfortunately does not enjoy the degree of affection and admiration due it. Neither does it attract any of the snobby, pseudo-intellectual comments usually directed to its spidery chrome counterpart. Traditionally, the wood bar stool has been the preserve of old man pubs, sports bars, and home dining room breakfast counters amongst the aspiring middle classes. As a result, we may blame upon wood bar stools the mock, ridicule, and derision which bar stools in general have had to endure since the 1990s. How many times have we been in the furniture department of Walmart or Target only to hear some guy - in a voluminous tracksuit, sporting a crew cut and titanium-rimmed specs - cast a sorry but scornful look at some poor, defenseless wood bar stool, shake his head, and say loudly, "Oh my god! Check it out, man. Wood bar stools! That is so '80s!"
Yee-ha!
But who, pray tell, was originally responsible for the homemade interior design travesty that was and could once again be the wood bar stool? In many countries around the western world, particularly with the rise of suburbia, people looked for the supposedly "exotic" in design, presumably to offset the boredom of their surrounding environment, their dull routines, and their drab lives. And so it was that an endless parade of exotic designs became the American home - the faux Mediterranean house, the Ranch style bungalow with its token half-buried wagon wheel in the side garden, and the hacienda style four-bedroom villa, with its arched straw double doorway and those bits of brown wood that stick out the walls to try and make your neighbors think that you live in Mexico instead of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Then, the home bar and the kitchen breakfast counter were introduced, and the wood bar stool became the essential furniture to complement the lavish, over-the-top fittings. The wood bar stool also helped reinforce the whole rustic western cowboy theme.
Back from the Grave
So the vilification of the wood bar stool is not without justification. As we have pointed out before, style and chic do not lie in the properties of the material but in the hands of the designer. And boy, have today's designers been doing their work to frantically dig out the wood bar stool out of the furniture design cemetery! The effort put in resurrecting the wood bar stool have been noble and nothing short of heroic. Expensive wooden fixtures such as oak wood flooring, beech wood wall paneling, and redwood ceilings, to name a few, have been shamelessly introduced and presented by many an interior designer to happily accommodate the wood bar stool.
Surprisingly, though, the wood bar stool is a bit of a novelty, if you really stop and take a good long look at it. It's fresh, original, and, if made of high quality wood, quite classy. With a matching counter or bar made of equally good wood and a nice, sparkling hardwood floor, you can have a rather festive saloon right in your very own home. You might want to forego the tacky swinging doors, though. You can only go so far with the wood bar stool.
Both Jeff Sliger & Marc Hardey are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Jeff Sliger has sinced written about articles on various topics from Fitness, Spa and Internet Marketing. The Author is a business owner with more than twenty years experience. A former Police Sergeant, Licensed Pilot, Heavy Equipment Operator, Military Trained Mechanic that has written technical manuals and short stories. An accomplished motorcycle rider he. Jeff Sliger's top article generates over 8100 views. to your Favourites.