We got to design this glorious piece of bespoke furniture that is quite different from anything that ever existed before (as far as we know). This extraordinary piece of furniture is a bespoke circular box stool, in fact it’s a stool that’s also a storage box that is also a chair – and the cool […]
We got to design this glorious piece of bespoke furniture that is quite different from anything that ever existed before (as far as we know). This extraordinary piece of furniture is a bespoke circular box stool, in fact it’s a stool that’s also a storage box that is also a chair – and the cool design makes it a bit of a piece of art as well.
We work with some very artistic and creative customers and we are so grateful to this particular customer for bringing us such an interesting project. She has filled her house with many lovely pieces (some of them Dovetailors designs) but above all she likes to fill her house with people. She makes the most delicious afternoon teas with a choice of aromatic teas, coffee, buns and cakes…but we digress. On these occasions she needs extra places for people to sit and we all know that extra seating often ends up being tucked away in a corner when not in use to accumulate more stuff!
Knowing the Dovetailors design team relishes a challenge she asked if we could design an occasional stool for her lovely kitchen (a Dovetailors kitchen by the way!). “Easy”, we said. Ah but could these stools double up as storage boxes, you know, to store stuff? “No problem,” we said, “that’s exactly the kind of thing we can help with”. But our customer really wants to make sure that whoever is going to use these stools will have a happy time and be comfortable –and let’s face it stools aren’t always comfortable! “So, we need a back to them,” she said. “That’s a chair,” we said, “not a stool!”. “Well,” she said, “not if the back is not always out!”. “Ok…”, we said, “so you want a stool that’s also a storage box, that’s sometimes a chair. We can do that…we think. ”Oh and of course it needs to look stunning!” That’s because our customer is an arts and crafts lover and every piece in her house has been individually chosen or designed.
Well, bespoke furniture design is what we do, so we set about designing this wondrous piece of furniture. We produced several designs moving back and forth from chair to stool to storage box and back to chair, listening to feedback from our customer. Making full use of our nifty design software, we were able to turn ideas and feedback into a 3D picture (we call it a render). This stage of design is really exciting, we can add a curve here, take away another bit there or change the wood essences used -this way we can be really close to our customer’s creative mind. Once we agreed the design, we had to work a bit on the comfort by making small templates to make sure the back of the seat had the right curvature.
We have ended up with a circular box stool design with a pull-out or sliding back which transforms it into a seat. The seat back flips and locks when up to give it more curvature for comfort. It is a piece that spends most of its life as a storage box and is used as an occasional stool but comes into its own when used as a chair – and a comfortable one! We visited our customer recently and, yes, we can confirm it is very comfy indeed! Craig, our head maker, loved working on this piece and the result is just stunning!
Are you after a piece of furniture that doesn’t quite exist. Give us a call!
