Versatility is a must when it comes to children’s furniture, and this clever item from Country Living fits the bill beautifully. These colorful benches, called Groowy, can be transformed into shelving. Stacked on top of each other, they create a bookcase, a free-standing room divider, as high or as low as your space allows. And if your child is having a play-date, and some extra sitting is needed, you can easily take the storage unit apart and transform it back into cool and child-friendly benches.
HT Babble
Rocking chairs are beautiful and universally loved, but how often do we actually use them? Honestly. We sit in them on a rare whim, and watch how they gather dust for the rest of their existence. But what if we could turn any chair into a rocking one when we need it and back when we don’t? This is the idea behind the Skis de Chaise from French designer Marie Thurnauer. These ‘skis’ can be applied to any four-legged chair. The wooden attachments snap into place, transforming your sitting into rocking! Made from wood, the Skis de Chaise has a slightly vintage feel to it, which adds one more complement to your existing furniture.
Consider Chool from the London based design company Slam – a chair and a stool in one clever item. In its stool version, it can be pushed under the table or stored in a closet, taking very little space. But when the extra sitting is needed, Chool becomes a chair. The weight of your bum is all that is needed for the transformation to occur. The piece can also be locked in any position between chair to stool at the push of a button. Chool is fully customizable with different upholstery choices and finishes. Color combinations are plentiful. And if you happen to have an outlandish design idea that is not represented in the line, the kind people at Slam will make an effort to implement it.
If you live in a small space, you know that formal dining can be a serious challenge. Luckily, designers know this too. And they come up with solutions, allowing our dining tables to go ‘off duty’ and perform other tasks between entertainments. The Doppelleben work/play table from Ahhaproject design studio and the Flat Fish 2 coffee/dining table from Designers at Large are good examples. The inspired design object we see here utilizes the same idea. A work desk by day and a dining table by night, this multifunctional piece from Goncalo Campos makes the transition between these two activities swift and seamless. The upper tabletop slides up revealing the working surfaces for two people, while serving as a screen to allow privacy and concentration. The set of storage boxes on the side complete the transformation.
Source: Mocoloco
Children’s furniture is an investment. I am yet to meet a parent who would not want the safest, prettiest, fluffiest items imaginable for the baby’s room. However, while no expenses are speared for accommodating your child’s needs and wants, the question remains – how to make these expenses count in the long run? This clever collection from Castor & Chouca could provide an answer. These pieces grow with their owner and transform from cutesy baby things into more adult items. Thus, a crib becomes a desk for a schoolchild; a toy cabinet goes under the work station in a form of a storage unit; and a child’s bed is transformed into a lounging sofa that would not embarras a socializing teenager. All pieces are eco-friendly and made from sustainable and recyclable materials.
This candy-colored beauty is a collaborative effort of designers Igor Solovyov and Dzmitry Samal. A chair and a chaise lounge in one – a chair longe. The transformation occurs as the ‘lounge’ part slides under the seat via two railing mechanisms located on its sides. The gap in the middle is not only an eye-pleasing accent, it accommodates the steel handle that locks the chair in its position. Fun and robust, this piece fits perfectly in today’s rapidly changing environment. It can be displayed and used in its full lounging glory or ‘tucked in’ for low key gatherings or simply to clear some space.
Anyone who has ever entertained in a small space knows that it is a sophisticated dance between perception and reality. We want to give the perception of not having limitations while cutting corners, especially when it comes to furniture. Ideally we wish our furniture to be credible in its entertaining functions and still keep its day job. This piece from Designers at Large studio does it all. FlatFish 2 is a coffee table by day and a full sized dining table by night. Its sub-structure is formed from waterjet cut light gauge aluminum and its legs are waterjet cut and formed from 3/16” plate steel; hence FlatFish 2 is light, stable and easy to operate in the event of a sudden relative invasion. Something else is interesting about the waterjet cutting technology – it optimizes the use of material and minimizes waste. Any scrap from the cutting process is used to create additional products. So, when the model hits the market (it is in design development now), you can dine and rest your feet on it knowing that you saved more than just space.
