Tags
Chair, craft, culture, elizabeth cottrell, Furniture Design, Garage sale, Interior design, Kiwiana, New Zealand, New Zealand Wool, Retro, revival furniture, style, Taihape, Textiles, Upcycling
Taihape, New Zealand is famous for being the Gumboot Capital of the world. Truly. In March this year, a new Men’s Open Gumboot Throwing New Zealand record was set by Niki Martin, throwing his gumboot 44.97m! Strange but true!
Taihape is also the home of Revival Furniture, a delightful wee find of so-kitsch-it’s-cool Kiwiana. The team at Revival Furniture re-cycle, re-furbish and re-love old chairs by re-upholstering them in New Zealand-made vintage wool blankets.
This lovely concept is the brain child of Elizabeth Cottrell, an adopted Kiwi. She has combined her childhood love of trawling garage sales in her balmy home town of Atlanta, Georgia, with a more recent love for New Zealand wool, developed after moving to the much colder climate of high country New Zealand to marry her Kiwi sheep farmer husband. I reckon’ that’s a lovely story.
Here are some of her lovely chairs:
Now, if I could just work out where to put such a retro beauty…
For contact information or just to check out some more really rad’ retro chairs, click here.
(All images sourced from Revival Furniture)
I love the 1st chair! Super cute 🙂
LikeLike
Lovely, isn’t it? 🙂
LikeLike
I grew up with that campground chair. Who EVER would have thought they’d come back.
LikeLike
Happens with alarming regularity, J!
LikeLike
Love them! Though I’m not sure that I even have space for that lovely ‘Cute as a Button’, so I should probably stop looking at ‘Three’s a Crowd’… They are just too cool! Or, like, totally rad.
LikeLike
I liked ‘Three’s a Crowd’, too! Great minds and all that, EDS… 🙂
LikeLike
I suspect that if there was no room for LM’s lazy boy (irrespective of how horrible and bachelorish it was) it would be a rather large double standard for you to find room for a “so kitsch its cute” chair even if it was very very cute!!!
LikeLike
Humph! Who’s side are you on?
LikeLike
I totally want the first chair. Alas, Wonderbutt would reduce it to firewood in a matter of hours.
LikeLike
Ah yes – Wonderbutt would have a field day with ‘Turquoise Taihape’ (try say that after one too many!)
LikeLike
what beautiful products to come out of a love story! Love that! The first is pretty cool.
LikeLike
The general consensus seems to be that the first one is the favourite!
LikeLike
I could just curl up on one of those right now with a nanna rug and a cuppa! So cute
LikeLike
You’re right – itthey do evoke that sort of sentiment, don’t they? 🙂
LikeLike
Hi,
Don’t like these much at all, not my style, I was well and truly around when these were in nearly every home, and I’m happy for the new generation that likes the look, but I have lived with these type of chairs and I will never go back to them. 🙂
LikeLike
Mags – it’s a good thing that we are all different and like different things! My Dad feels the same way you do about these chairs! 🙂
LikeLike
It would be a very dull world if we all liked the same things. 😀
LikeLike
These chairs are actually (just a little) bad ass…totally love it!! 🙂 xo
LikeLike
Not sure hummus had hit New Zealand when these chairs were first put on the market…! 🙂
LikeLike
Brilliant! Upcycling at its best! Personally I love the last 2 chairs.
LikeLike
I’m not surprised these appeal to you, my surface designing (not to mention sustainable!) friend. 🙂
LikeLike