Cool Hunting Green - Repurposed Furniture and Other Creative Gems

What stands out with these funky recycled bags are the attractive fish illustrations and the bright colours. They are a great example of repurposed material that have been made into fashionable bags. The collection is not just limited to one style of bag, there are many in the range including:

Recycled Cosmetic Purse, Recycled Document Case, Recycled Tote, Recycled Purse, and Recycled Zipped Shopper.

They are all made well and are a Fair Trade Production. This means that the sale money creates sustainable opportunities by way of fair wages and safe working conditions. This in turn empowers Cambodian woman for a more meaningful future. Often these woman are victims of abuse.

As these bags are made from former fish feed backs they have been recycled and repurposed into groovy fashionable and highly items.

You can Buy these Recycled Bags from this online shop

This exciting furniture is a creation of designer Boris Bally. He has found a creative use for repurposed road signs. Not only has he made these chairs out of old destined for the trash heap road signs, they are also very comfortable and have a distinct modern design to them, with long narrow backing. The designer has coined the phrase Humanufactoring. It’s easy to see why, these as well as his other impressive range of furniture are all hand made.

These chairs as well as his other furniture are made to be easily taken apart and then reassembled, so they can be flat packed for easy transport.

I’ve seen another type of this furniture at my local Mexican takeaway restaurant up at Oxford street, except they are stools and not as well made as these. They tend to have sharp edges and scrape your legs if you are not too careful.

These chairs have two rounds of deburring on them to prevent this from happening, the attention to detail is very good and will make the difference to a good piece of repurposed furniture to an excellent piece. As you are using old or second hand material you cannot always get the precision of a factory made object, that also helps in the appeal of a piece - being handmade - but it can also have the downside of an unfinished looking  and feeling piece of furniture.

For more on this designer see the following websites www.borisbally.com and www.snagmetalsmith.org

Remix your Old Lounge
This is an example of taking repurposed furniture and then customising it to match the individual. The designers at Life is Suite (what a cool name, I wish I’d thought of it) have turned an old disused couch into a masterpiece with original art work to create something that is an expression of the individual that it was created for.

In this example of a couch they have used material from old aprons, tea cloths and much more to reflect the identity of who it was designed for, the potential is limitless, you could use cloths - maybe a favorite pair of old jeans form the person to be made part of the fabric of the chair or couch.

I particularly like the colour and vibrancy of this piece. It’s yelling for you to give it some attention, to snuggle up on it.

You could write poems, a story or ad images of memories and moments to be caught forever or until the fabric is warn out on this couch. Even put recipes on here, or games you could play when there’s nothing on TV.

I would ad some retro patterns, maybe a few recipes and some fun images, only your imagination is your limitation.

As soon as I saw this mat I wanted it, it’s such a beautiful colour and worn texture, it’s not cheap at $688 from www.branchhome.com but it sure is original and a great example or repurposed furniture.

I’ve not come across a lot of repurposed furniture that are floor coverings, but it’s one area that would be fairly easy to source material for and would add another layer of rich texture to a room.

I especially like the rich colour tones that look like a worn wood floor. It looks very well made that is mounted on a backing of reconstituted leather using water-based glue.

I like how the designer has used mainly dark tones of blacks and blues and then just introduced a hint of colour with the deep tans, reds and browns.

I also like round mats as they add another strong shape to a square room and help to break up strong right angles.

This is one of the best examples of repurposed furniture I’ve seen for a while, it’s so modern and simple in it’s application of the material and in the form of it’s design.

Repurposed furniture works best when the application of material is done with the minimal of construction. Here the material is weaved in and through itself to form not only a great looking texture but a very strong functional support.

Post-industrial automotive seat belts are an excellent choice of material, they are easy to access and are a lovely texture, very smooth to touch and extremely strong to fasten things to.

The combination of the solid Maple wood gives this piece a strong structure to work from and softens the look of the piece while providing a little bit of contrast from the deep shiny black of the seat belts.

The website where the product - www.vivavi.com is from has many other great pieces of furniture, ,a real goldmine.

Reclaimed Wood A Compositional Masterpiece - http://www.uncommongoods.com

Designed from gifted artist Margret Taylor these rich design pieces are a compositional masterpeices. Look at the colours and shapes, they create a magnetic amount of energy and interest.

These old house panels are marked and weathered over time to create e rich texture that begs for your attention and inquisition.

They are sure to add a uniqueness to any room that is special enough to have it hold these beauties.

I love the description of a patchwork quilt that is on the Uncommongoods website, it accurately describes these textured cubed storage chests. It comes rustic material with a modern shape - which are the principles of repurposed furniture.

You can choose colours and be assured they are all one of a kind.

Be sure to check out the other similar items such as Reclaimed Patchwork Headbed With Bed Frame, Reclaimed Patchwork Three Tier Coffee Table, Reclaimed Patchwork End Table With Shelf and Reclaimed Patchwork Bench / Small Coffee Table. They are all so reasonably priced for handmade furniture with such beauty.

Looks Good and holds 5 metres of Books!  http://www.nobodyandco.it

I need one of these desperately, I’ve got way too many books for all those trips to the bookstore and walking out with full bags.

I like the modern design sensibility  with bright colours and geometric shape. It’s the kind of design that fits in with your other pieces of furniture without dominating the room too much.

The top level is especially useful as you can put longer books there.

The fact that it holds so many books is one of the best aspects with this piece. So if you’re lazy like me you can choose a book without ever having to leave your set, hang on… that could be dangerous!

It would be good to have a place for magazines and larger books but then you would loose the clean straight lines that really make the chair work as such a groovy looking piece of furniture that would look amazing in any house.

Highly Original and Very Functional - www.screwhead.org

One of the best websites I’ve come across on repurposed furniture, who would of thought - Repurposed Bike Furniture!

The designer has done a really amazing job at creating what looks like very comfortable and functional furniture.

There is a whole lot of different furniture on the website including groovy Bike Mirrors, Bar Stools, and Tables, all look very functional and highly creative. Be sure to check out the Metra Cocktail Table - made from bike handle bars and a green window from a commuter train.

I started thinking how on earth did this designer come to creative bike furniture - that would be a cool story in itself! They have listed this web link of this British Designer - Marcel Breuer as their inspiration - www.designmuseum.org

Hackney Lite - this is a follow up piece from the Hackney Shelf.
Designed by Peter Ryan Frank they are an interesting idea. Originally set up around a city of Gaf artiest to tag them and put their coolest artwork on them. After that they were taken down and assembled onto furniture - like this shelf on wheels.

It brings the street into your living room, or you can buy plan ones and tag them yourself. They are made from OSB board which contains waste wood chips - so not only are they a great example of repurposed furniture they are also made from recyclable material.

Also check out their other products, the Strata, Shanty , Inkuku, and Ishongololo. I wonder where the names come from?

I’ve collected some of my favorite websites on the best examples of repurposed furniture, check out the Vintage Ski chair and Scrabble furniture - ingenious!

All these objects seem to be made really well to, they aren’t junk that will fall apart when you actually start using them. You can see really people using them. That was my first concern when looking at buying some of this furniture for myself, there has to be good craftsmanship.

For craftsmanship on of my favorite websites is chasedeforest.com These guys really know how to make a beautiful object not only look great using the best principles of repurposed furniture, they also make each object work as a functional piece of furniture.

Some of their other wooden objects have amazing detail and it’s obvious the level of workmanship in them. I need to start saving my pennies so I can buy one one day.

I Dugg this the other day - you can follow it at this location - Repurposed furniture