Have you ever considered how strange it is that, when so many elements of modern living have become casual, that furniture continues to follow pretty much the same rigid shapes and lines as it did 20 years ago. Whilst clothing, crockery and even garden furniture have become increasingly relaxed, we are still presented with chairs and sofas in shops and on TV that bear a remarkable resemblence to the 3 piece suites that we used to buy decades ago. What really surprises me is that, with all the space that the big box furniture retailers have got, the most relaxed of furniture types, the bean bag, has not established a firm foothold.
Of course, you might simply be one of those people that imagines bean bags to be a 1960s or 1970s product that has had its day. If so, you will surprised to learn that beanbags have undergone a tremendous revival in the past 5 years. This may have passed you by if you are not an online shopper as, whilst the high street and out of town retailers have largely ignored bean bags, a number of online retailers like Bean Bag Bazaar offer an incredible variety of bean bags in really high quality fabrics.
The reason for this steady resurgence in beanbag sales seems to be that it is a product that people find it easy to live with. For a start, bean bags are really easy to move around a room or from room to room and they are a relatively cheap way of increasing the amount of seating you have at home. But there is more to it than that. The way that bean bags can be reshaped, thrown around and rolled over makes them a uniquely fun piece of furniture. In addition, a lot of contemporary bean bags are suitable for use in the garden as well as indoors, which just emphasises their credentials as a multi use seating product.
Something that really surprised me was how far the new crop of bean bag designers and makers have pushed the edges of the concept. Not content with selling us small bean bags, big bean bags and beanbags with pictures on, they have come up with bean based baby recliners, gaming chairs and footstools. It made me sit up, pun intended, and realise that there is far more innovation going on in this rather hidden part of the seating market than is happening in the world of 3 piece sofas.
So, bean bags have emerged from the back of the charity shop to become genuine must have furniture, and there is plenty of product to choose from out there. The key to loving your beanbag is to regard it as fun furniture that is also far more practical than you might think.