Furniture From Old Furnishings

Reconstituted wood and recovered wooden blinds sofa.

Recovered wooden tiles coffee table.

When you’re finished with home finishings, it does not constitute the end of the items’ lifetime. Argentine design studio Gruba has found uses for old blinds, wooden floor tiles, and other discarded materials.

The content and components of these furniture designs are not hidden; Gruba designers made sure to expose the beauty within recycled materials. Their primary intention was to showcase what is usually hidden, so these materials can be fully appreciated.

In addition to giving these materials a second life, each design has the ability to be disassembled and recycled even further.

Via TreeHugger.

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Students Display The Colorful Side Of Reusing Materials

More photos found at designboom.

Students from the German school, Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart (Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences) displayed their innovatively artistic side at the most recent home interiors exhibition of imm cologne 2010.

Their installation’s focus was on reusing thousands of discarded and collected bottle caps, utilizing them to create a colorful and eye-catching backdrop to their miniature furniture models. On top of their immense bottle-cap creation, the Stuttgart students also placed beanbag seats filled with even more bottle caps. While the comfort level is questionable, the creativity and eco-insight is greatly appreciated.

Via designboom.

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Designers Using Recycled Materials: Furniture From Available Objects

Malafor has come up with a simple and easily stored furniture design entitled the Blow Sofa. It is made of 100% recycled and recyclable (inflatable) paper dunnage bags, which are traditionally used for cushioning and stabilizing cargo amidst rocky transportation.

For a comfortable rest, one just has to blow up the bags, which are completely transportable and easy to assemble. The materials used to construct this sofa are the recycled dunnage bags, a metal rack, rubber straps (and air).

More new furniture from Malafor can be found by clicking here.

Via Daily Coverage.

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The Playful Side of Upcycling

Ryan McElhinney redefines upcycling with his new collection of lamps and mirrors. Transforming trash to treasure, McElhinney has created beautiful sculptural pieces from old toys and some high-gloss lacquer. Check out the rest of the collection here and keep your eye out for more innovative upcycling ideas and products!

Via Buzz Beast.

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VOUWWOW [Vow-Wow] – Wow! It Folds!

Fusing the sustainability of a re-used cardboard box with the structural integrity of the golden ratio of the vaunted triangle, Dutch designers Joost Van Nort’s and Maartje Nuy just won the Thonet Mart Stamprijs 2009 Chair Design Competition for their cardboard folding chair, VOUWWOW. It won recognition for its wise materials use, ease of assembly, portability, and innovative bohemian aesthetic.

Vouwwow forges a new aesthetic—one that acknowledges the need for a new paradigm for all the stuff we produce and discard every day.

Via 3rings.

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Utilizing The Urban Forest (Fallen Trees = Lumber)

When a tree falls in the city, where does it go? More than likely, it is made into firewood or mulch, but it could be utilized as hardwood lumber thereby saving old growth trees and forests. These trees fall for various reasons ranging from storms, old age, insects or construction, but we could use this lumber for furniture, building, cabinets, and even paper products.
According to Stephen Bratkovich, a forest products specialist with the USDA Forest Service, using these trees could satisfy 30 percent of the country’s hardwood needs. Really all we need is someone to mill them into lumber. Bruce and Erica Horigan have a mill, Horigan Urban Forest Products, just North of Chicago and say “we are committed to the environment by reducing the number of trees removed from the forest, the amount of fuel consumed for transportation, and the amount of carbon that is released into the atmosphere by sequestering it as hardwood lumber. ”


The wood produced is very beautiful, has character, and the user knows exactly where it came from. This chair was made from an Ash tree that was infested with the dreaded Emerald Ash Borer, a wood eating beetle. Also recently, a synagogue in Evanston, IL used the maple trees cut down in construction for the new building.

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Don’t Trash it, Sit On It

Recycled plastics are making there way into numerous consumer goods these days and a creative offering from the UK is reclaiming our old coffee cups and shampoo bottles and transforming them into high quality chairs and tables. Re-Form Furniture’s designs are conceived with simplicity and sustainability in mind. They are designed to be durable, fun and raise environmental awareness.

Along with post-consumer and industrial recycled plastics such as HDPE, and PET supplied from the innovative firm Smile Plastics, Re-Form uses locally sourced timber and natural oils in the production of their furniture. Their products are designed for easy disassembly and use minimal glue. Re-From furniture’s unique offerings highlight the potential of recycled plastics and help reduce the strain we continually place on our landfills.

Re-Form Website

Shearyadi’s World Blog on Re-Form

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Cassette Tape Furniture

With the advance of technology, significant changes in ways we value our possessions has become an inspiration for designers like Patrick Schuur to create a furniture piece built entirely out of 918 old cassette tapes, wooden frames and aluminum. Originally made to serve as a space divider and storage device, the cassette tapes are individually screwed onto the wooden frames which then provides access to the storage space.

Schuur explains that the reasoning behind using old cassette tapes was not only because its aesthetics, but to remind people of how good the technology used to look in the old days.

For more information, please visit creativebarn.nl.

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