If you’re a real wine expert you’ll be able to guess the winery this oak barrel stave chair comes from just by the tint of the burgundy highlights in the finish. Or you could cheat by looking under the seat where the winery’s name is branded. The chairs fold up flat and work great for indoor or outdoor use, where their natural oil finish will stand up to the elements. They also make a bench model for you cuddlers.
Sometimes it seems like upcycled and repurposed materials are little more than marketing fluff to make ugly products appeal to your guilty-conscience consumerism. But now new stuff made from old stuff is starting to look quite nice. LA-based designer Stephen Kenn creates fine furnishings using repurposed military surplus materials. Perfect for the man room or bachelor’s den.
It’s modeled after an old school draftsman’s stool. But this adjustable, distressed steel and wood model is a barstool, more for the draughtsman. Get it? Draught? Hey, you try to be clever about a stool and see what you come up with.
Tell me you didn’t cringe when you put that shipping pallet out on the curb. Such a waste, right? Some of us are handy enough to find good use for all that pine, but for the rest of us, how about letting craftsman Clark Titus cobble together a fine looking chair out of the “waste”? He’ll finish it with teak oil and ship it out for your green ass to sit on.
Chicago-based designer Greta de Parry calls her creations Design Mullet Objects: pieces like her concrete & steel coleman stools are “a bit of business and a bit of party.” Handmade of steel stock and concrete, de Parry makes these stools in any size you want. Just ask her, but speak up, her hearing is a little jacked from the metal grinders and saws.
The whole planet is polluted with used car tires. It’s cool this chair from green artist/inventor Peter Danko will keep a few out of the landfill. He uses chunks of tire to create a cushy, comfy suspension system for this task chair. The frame is made of tube steel and the seat is made from FSC-approved Ash veneers.
Stolen road signs have been a du rigeur decoration in frat houses and college dorms since the days of Animal House. Designer/builder Tim Delger took things a bit further. His furniture designs highlight the bold colors and familiar graphics of the sign from which they’re made. These qualities create a striking impact by bringing a part of the urban environment indoors.
You might wonder why people are perfectly willing to pay so much for a Herman Miller chair … but then, you sit in one. If the bulk of your waking life is spent at a desk, staring into your computer, Herman Miller’s got your back. Literally. The SAYL has all the ergonomic features and progressive design you’d expect, but this model is lighter, less costly, and its construction is 93% recyclable.
What to do with used wine corks? Renowned designer, Reza Feiz at Los Angeles-based Phase Design came up with a couple cool ideas. His Life After Corkage ottoman and stool recycle used wine corks into designer furnishings. Each piece keeps 2500 corks out of the landfill and gives them a new life in your home.
The progressive, award-winning designs of Australian artist, Adam Cornish straddle the line between fine art and furniture. His wooden hammock is constructed from one piece of plantation-grown plywood modeled after the human spine providing perfect posture in the prone position.
