Globally Green Living

I liked the idea of recycling old aluminum lawn chairs by reweaving them with seatbelts. You can find seatbelts in various colors, make several, and have some colorful practical lawn chairs. See Wastelands of Suburbia for more on the seatbelt lawn chair.

• At Trendhunter there’s an eco-friendly lawn couch that requires you to fill the frame with soil and grow grass on it to shape it out. This would be a lot of fun for the family because they could help maintain it with ongoing watering. It would require some trimming though if you wanted it to maintain it’s shape.

• Eco Street has a post with several DIY lawn chair projects. There’s a video showing you how to make a chair out of an old shopping cart, a tractor seat chair and an octopus chair made from some stuffed old jeans. Although stealing shopping carts is not advised, it’s is a wonderful way to recycle old ones that were heading to the landfill anyway.

How about a hammock? Here’s the Ultimate Hammock from the lifestyle company Gaiam. It’s made out of recycled plastic bottles.

Gaiam also sells these fun wine barrel chairs made out of recycled wine barrels. I love the rustic simple design.

If you want something a little more comfortable, there’s a recycled wrought iron chair with a cushion.

It would go great along with a recycled iron bistro table. These chairs would be easy to fold and store as well. That’s a bonus, especially if you need a bunch of chairs only occasionally.

I found this great company called MetaForm Studio that designs furniture from recycled and sustainable materials.

Shown here is the ReTire rocker made from recycled car tires and sustainable plywood. They also make desks from discarded heavy-duty oak pallets, chairs out of bungee cords and lamps out of recycled crates.

These eco-conscious lamps are not only practical but also attractive. I love the way the light beams bounce off the walls creating beautiful patterns similar to a kaleidoscope.

This is their tower lamp made out of recycled crate wood. I just love it and am determined to get one someday.

Khader Humied is an amazing architect, furniture maker and MetaForm’s director. He and Chris Randolph make a wonderful team since she’s the talented artistic painter and art therapist.

Shown here is “Johnny’s Hooks Coat Rack” and it’s made by welding, painting and sculpting recycled rebar from demolition sites! We could really use one of these too.

MetaForm Studio is located in Garnerville New York and their show room is available by appointment only. I would love to check out their show room. It’s admirable how they managed to find so many recycled materials to make practical furniture with. I love doing that with crafts and it’s obviously on a smaller scale but I’m curious what other creations from castoffs they have come up with. My furniture creations consist of using milk cartons for books or tables. We had a big spool we used as table years ago too which I thought was funky at the time but nobody else was impressed. To see more, check out MetaForm Studio’s website.