Ornate furniture with a modern twist

Modern furniture doesn’t have to be sterile and cold. Light Vintage from Italian design firm Moda offers an ornate, classic wood furniture line paired with bold, colorful modern fabrics. The result is a playful mix of old and new that would fit in a European palace and a loft in Chicago. The furniture line features chairs, sofas and my favorite the fainting couch.

Flexible wood furniture

Nevermind those extra holiday pounds you packed on, Dutch designer Carolien Laro has released a series of stools with flexible seats created by cutting slits into their solid ashwood tops.
The seating collection includes a three-seatbench and three stools, one on wheels, one without and another with folded steel legs. To create the Springwood effect, each seat has 480 CNC-milled cuts.

Can’t outgrow this table

Kids outgrow shoes, clothes and toys but not this table—it grows as they do.
Austrian furniture maker Perludi designed Caspar, an ergonomic, environmentally friendly children’s table. The design is simple: Four colorful legs are placed into the four holes in the hand-crafted solid-wood tabletop and secured at the desired height with o-rings made from natural rubber. To adjust the top’s height and inclination, or to balance out an uneven floor, slide the infinitely adjustable legs up or down individually within their holes.
The Caspar is made from locally grown spruce wood.

Furniture visionary Maloof dies at 93

Sam Maloof’s wooden furniture was much like the man graceful and creative, has died. He was 93.
As a newlywed in the late 1940s’ Maloof couldn’t afford furniture and set out to build his own using discarded fir plywood and oak shipping crates. Soon after his friends and family started asking for copies of his pieces.
Maloof began his career as a full-time woodworker in 1948 and was completely self-taught.
In 1949, Better Homes & Gardens magazine published photographs of his furniture to show readers how to decorate on a budget. Less than 10 years later the American Craft Museum in New York displayed his work in its first studio-craft furniture exhibition. Maloof also was the first craftsman to receive a MacArthur Foundation grant in 1985.
Over the decades his handcrafted furniture sells for more than 100 times the original purchase price and can be found in the Vatican, the Smithsonian and the White House.
His signature design was a rocking chair with elongated rockers jutting backward. While the feature looks to be sculptural it was incorporated to keep the chair from tipping over.