Today, I have a special feature for you. Trendey has had a word with the design duo behind fabulous escape from sofa. If you haven’t seen their furniture collection yet, I hereby make sure you do! Escapefromsofa are exhibiting later this month in both TENT LONDON and Istanbul Design Week with nothing less than ûber-trendey design that hits both at our love for mid-century and the surge for nature inside. Or as Henen put it: 50’s modernism meets the Flintstones. Design duo Mahmut Kefeli (industrial designer) and Kerem Ercin believe in simplicity and worship the details, and they enjoy working with new and emerging materials and technologies. Now, let’s hear some more! I found three favourites in the collection, one of them is the 2-functions-in-1 sidetable Coma (above), cravings!, and another one is this gorgeous shelf/bookcase named Longneck:

Please tell us about it!

Longneck is our first baby actually. We designed longneck while we were designing nisantasi berker house (name of the project). We created it as a tv unit and later on we decided to make it as a moduler unit. And after all we are quite satisfied.

You should be! Your furniture collection is lovely. What was your main inspirations and thoughts for the collection?

We always try to work with the sense of style, simplicity and functionality and mostly believe that scandinavian furnitures are really good designs and we as escapefromsofa try to look from their aspect. And also we believe that the devil is in the details!

For the collection also we tried to achieve the perfection of simplicity, the perfection of craftmanship and also the perfection of functionality.

Your brand name is interesting. It implies a movement away from the sofa?

That’s actually what we try to impress with the name of escapefromsofa. As you know mediterenian people live quite close to their sofas. But we as escapefromsofa try to stay away from sofas. We love our job and we love to design. You know the saying that “ let your job be your lover, so that you dont have to go work everyday!“ This is the main idea that we try to implement to our office and co workers.

That’s you reviving all couch potatoes! :)  Indeed a great saying. This is my third favourite, the rocking chair Short Tail:
Please tell us about it!

As you know every designer has at least one iconic rocking chair. So that we designed one :)

Well done! Love its vibe. Lastly, what are your plans -  when and how will your products be available?

Our goal is to enlarge our collection and meet with manufacturers. So that we can distrubute our products worldwide. Also if we manage to produce 1.000.000 pieces of one product than i can say that we achieved our goal :).

Our product are available at Nordist in Istanbul. Hopefully we ll come up worldwide soon :)

And yey, Trendey sincerely hopes so too!

This is a home decor chapter I find really interesting: frame groupings and displays. A person’s home actually tells a story about that person. If not about nerdy interests and exotic adventures (or the love for white and cleanliness ;)), it does say a lot about what is dear to that human. In my opinion nothing is more thrilling and enjoyable than rooms and homes that speaks! Speaks stories, speaks loud, and speaks well, different style languages. A home full of character or at least: some. And displays of various kinds serve that purpose very well.

Ten globes are really cooler than one, don’t you think?

Here’s one of the best DIY-ideas I’ve spotted in ages: using pant hangers!

That’s such a great way to display a doll collection.
And lastly, book shelves, literally speaking. Love it!

…is a body with soul.

| pics from House Beautiful, Rum, Elle Decor & Atelier Abigail Ahern |

Discuss!

Step 1:  Collect old, found, new or forgotten boxes, crates or drawers in a glorious mix of colours and materials (perhaps some wallpaper in the bottom of a box or two?)

Step 2: Arrange in a creative pile and gather together with a colourful cord as in the pictures below (you could also nail boxes to eachother for extra stability).

Step 3: Hey presto! You will now have a really cool and artful storage installation of your very own making! :-)

Source: Elle Decoration October 2010 p.69 (apologies for the poor picture quality!)

I’m scavenging around for boxes at the moment because I want to make something like this. I haven’t got enough yet though (I only have one box so far!) I’d like to use really old and interesting-looking boxes, so I’ll have to do some searching. And perhaps I’ll include a wine rack also…hmm…or an old radio or safe? Well, shall have to see what I can find! :-)

Also take a look at these rather amazing creations by designer Tejo Remy for inspiration…

like this

Here’s a quick note about a little bookshelf I just stumbled across and really fancy! It’s the Readers Nest by David Design. A smart and beautiful way to keep the favourite books close to the favorite reading spot. I can see it next to my lounge chair, next to my bed or by one of the trees that holds my hammock…When it’s time for a break, some refreshments or a little nap, I simply place the book up side down on top of the shelf, and tada, I can easily restart the reading.

The material is white-lacquered metal and the shelf measures 17,5 x 32 x 17,5 cm. Price tag: approx £44 (495SEK). I love the birdhouse-look!