Wire chair is pretty with a touch of the industrial.

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Maybe it’s just that with a toddler, I already spend so much time sitting on the floor so it’s a bit of a luxury to actually get up onto the couch. Especially when I get to sit solo, instead of with a small human being on my lap demanding stories. More and more stories! But when I read something over at Apartment Therapy recently that asserted that you absolutely need to double up those floor pillows for comfort, I had to admit my ignorance.

Floor pillows? Like the grownup version of the beanbag chair? Seated on a floor cushion, floor pillow, whatever, your feet fall asleep and there’s nowhere to lean and you consequently have to maintain perfect posture or become a hunchback.

Am I getting any of this right? Or I am simply not hip to the floor pillows charms? Or perhaps it’s just floor fatigue…

Found on The Purl Bee

Admittedly, I do like the look. It’s very casual, like we all lounge wherever we want around here. Chairs? We don’t need no stinking chairs. We have floor cushions! Cushions ON THE FLOOR! Don’t try to badger us into adopting your bourgeois couch-and-chair lifestyle, because we’re not having it. It’s a floor pillow revolution! Furniture you can fit in the back of your hybrid!

(Well, okay. I like that last part. Furniture is too dang bulky. Tell me: Do you have any of these pillows on steroids in your living room?)

OMG I am SO close to my 1,000th post! Wonder if anything special will go down to mark the event!?

The Spring tabouret created by Dutch designer Erik Jansen for Wildspirit is a simple and elegant seating piece that is most definitely eye-catching.

The Spring tabouret, has the shape of a beautiful flower and is made out of bamboo stripes that have been cut and bowed in a very special way. This nice experiment results in an extremely flexible and functional sitting pouf decorating your kitchen, lounge bar, living room,…

The Spring stool is a flower, made out of a bamboo strain, cut in a new way. It is a nice experience to be carried by this flexible and comfortable stool. When looking to the “Spring”, you always get an optimistic and sunny feeling.

In my house, Spring would look lovely in the living room in those spaces that are too big to stay empty but too small for something like a table or armchair. But is Spring comfortable, as Wildspirit claims? Have a look and decide for yourself. My guess is probably not as comfortable as they’d like you to believe.

Check the unique interplay between the classic table and modern chairs

Spring: Durable bamboo in a beautiful and unique shape

In conclusion: I love the look, but would still rather have one of these.

I shouldn't want this as badly as I do.

I know I really shouldn't want this. Really.

Gimme gimme gimme!

Smoking rabbit stool. Known as: Black Labbit Stool. Seen in the wild at Kidrobot. Made of fiberglass. And absolutely maddeningly delicious.

I love ghost chairs. The originals, the knock offs, the rentals at events. Whatever. Clear chairs, basically plastic and line produced, very cool. Why? Because they look pretty damn sharp mixed in with regular decor. That’s modern or classic, whatever, as long as there is some color there. Should you go out and fill up your digs with polycarbonate chairs and plastic tables and so on? Nah. That’s the recipe for ending up looking like a specialty shop that’s trying to hard. But one or even two clear plastic chairs? Very cool.

Pasha in the wild

Pasha and a friend

Pasha at home

This particular polycarbonate chair is Pasha, designed by Marco Pocci and Claudio Dondoli for Pedrali, and it also comes in black and white for those who like the fantastic plastic but not so much the clear aesthetic as much as I do.

Looking for seating that’s trend-friendly and different and modern and also inspired by food? Then how could you not dig sushi furniture from Sushi Style by Mimi Tin? These definitely don’t fall into the category of ‘cheap and funky gear that’s all but disposable.’ Tin uses silk thread to weave the designs on her entire line of sushi furniture, from the multi-purpose ottomans that can be used as a chair or, when you remove the “seaweed wrap,” as cushions to child-sized sushi beanbags and other fun things.

Mimi Tin, of Sushi Style

The Cali ottoman

The Carrot ottoman

And poufs!

As you probably guessed, this particular sushi furniture isn’t cheap, but I was actually surprised to see that it doesn’t cost more. An ottoman and cushion set – sushi wrapped in seaweed, I mean – will run you $625. And if that feels a bit steep in the context of your current circumstances, you can always sate your appetite for sushi furniture with one of Mimi Tin’s adorable sushi poufs!

A different kitchen seating option

When you have a small kitchen or even a wee dining room – maybe even a tiny little breakfast nook – huge dining chairs with arms and upholstery can really take away from the space you do have. If you can’t shove your dining chairs all the way under your table… if you want to use a tablecloth… if it’s difficult to move your dining chairs from under the table without shifting the table, you have a problem. (And don’t even get me started on high chairs!)

The solution? Kitchen benches instead of kitchen chairs. Benefits of kitchen benches over kitchen chairs include the ability to easily stash your seating under the table when not in use, the ability to use a longer tablecloth without it bunching everywhere because chairs are in the way, and more versatility when it comes to how many people will fit at your table. The main downside of using benches in the kitchen is the lack of the back, which may not work for people with physical issues like back problems.

Anyone out there using kitchen benches instead of kitchen chairs? I’m thinking about making the switch, but I work at my kitchen table so I need to be sure that I’ll be comfortable working on a bench instead of a chair.

This is just fantastic – Sakura Adachi designed a unique piece of furniture for Campeggi that is all three. A bookcase when the chairs are pushed in, a desk for the singleton who wants her books close at hand, or a cozy table for a couple… a couple of readers, perhaps.

As someone who is currently using the kitchen table an ersatz home office, I could use it. As someone with a small house, I could use it. And as someone with toys everywhere at the moment, I could definitely use it!

When outfitting the kitchen or the dining room with somewhere to sit, don’t feel like you have to buy four or six or eight matching chairs – especially if buying eight of the chairs you love is way impossible within the confines of your budget! Mismatched dining chairs can be a lot of fun when you make the effort to have fun with them. Let’s say you can get ONE of those chairs you love. Why not source the rest of thrift or consignment shops or Craigslist? Look for interesting shapes that complement that favorite chair – but don’t worry too much about color, because paint and glaze can go a long way toward achieving a unified look. See?

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Let’s say you’re bored with your current dining area outfit: a wood table, four wood chairs that feature precisely the same shade of stain. It’s basic, maybe there’s a padded seat or cushions, but nothing to showy. And let’s say, too, that you’re looking to get away from the whole matchy-matchy thing in your entire home. Your newest obsession is mismatched…everything, from mismatched bedside tables to mismatched headboards and more. First step? Lose either the table or the chairs – and right now, I’m thinking it’s the chairs that have to go. You can replace them with these:

And just what are they? Those would be classic Tolix chairs – Chair A, specifically – designed by Burgundy artisan Xavier Pauchard in 1937 for the Tolix brand he himself launched.

It was the fifth time that day that Xavier Pauchard had left his office and headed – impatiently – to the workshops. Walking towards his foreman’s workbench Xavier Pauchard pushed back the black beret that seemingly never left his head and examined with his expert’s eye the prototype stackable chair that was the object of the team’s unstinting endeavours. “This will be the Model A” he said to himself. Tinsnips in hand he deftly began to fashion a new seat base from a sheet of steel. Working on his tinsmiths block he then started to hammer away, curving the steel to the exact shape he wanted. “Tack it together please,” said Xavier Pauchard, who was keen to see a trial assembly. Pierre Moreau roughly assembled the various elements with a few dabs of weld. “That’s enough for today,” Moreau said as he left the workshop, glancing as he went at the strange metal chair that so obsessed Monsieur X.

That’s a pretty romantic backstory for a chair, non? And why not? It’s a rather romantic chair, appearing as it has in just the sort of French bars and brasseries that you and I would no doubt like to be sitting at right at this very moment. But let’s get back to that wooden table of yours. There’s nothing wrong with a nice sturdy wood table that will last for decades under the stresses of both dinner parties and children wielding crayons like daggers. It just so happens that the strong straight modern lines of the Toilix Chair A look amazing next to an old wood table that’s a bit beat up. You could go scouring the world for originals, but they’re not easy to come by from what I’ve heard. It will probably cost you less in the long run to get the re-issue, which is sold in lots of places in various colors and finishes.

(For those who, like me, can’t afford a set of Tolix chairs just at this moment, there are always basic brushed aluminum chairs to fill the gap until the money rolls in.)