Boxes and Stools
If you’ve browsed our store, you may have noticed we make a lot of boxes and stools. I’m obsessed with them, and I’ll give you three reasons why.
Reason one is that their skill transferability level is through the roof. If you can master a small box, here’s what else you can make: drawers, cabinets, armoires, entertainment centers, dressers, blanket chests, bookcases, toy boxes, and frames, not to mention the sheer volume of applications for small boxes, all of which can be repurposed for anything else. The same goes for stools. After you get good at it, things like chairs, benches, ottomans, and tables become a lot easier.
Reason two is their incredible versatility. I’ve already mentioned box versatility, but in the product description for our Rhizome Stools, I refer to them as unsung heroes of the furniture and home decor world. Like ottomans, you can kick your feet up while sitting on a lounge chair or put a tray on them as you eat dinner and watch TV. We’re developing trays specific to each of our stools, ones that fit snugly on top, so keep an eye out for those. They’re extremely mobile because they’re lightweight and don’t occupy a lot of space. When we have guests for casual affairs, stools come in handy. They add seating to a room without clogging up space, and people pick and choose where to place themselves, which is nice. When we don’t have company, we use them with trays to hold vases and cut flowers from the garden. Stools, simply put, bring us joy.
As makers, boxes and stools are fun for reason three, which is that despite being so simple, or maybe because of it, they’re an opportunity to exercise our design muscles. How many different closure methods can we create for our boxes? You’d be shocked at the variety of options. What makes for the perfect stool? How far can you go to pare it down to the fewest components without compromising integrity and strength? I love cotton webbing because it fits perfectly with my design ethos of combining modern and traditional styles, but I’m scouting ways of sourcing cattail reeds locally to make woven stools. That’ll be fun.
