elihu stool

a sick and twisted take on furniture design.

an island in the sun.

elihu island is a small island off the atlantic coast, in stonington, connecticut. since before i had memory, stonington was an annual trip taken with my family and cousins during the summer. this stool was inspired by the outdoor furniture present around the island.

lathing

fusion simulations

hand-drawing

layout

shapr3d

collection

skills

bokeh furniture

don’t make this stool.

that’s what every furniture designer told me when i suggested the concept — the angled legs would splay out and snap under the pressure. in fact, one of the miniatures snapped. so i built it anyways.

*after running tests in fusion, with mdf material under my own weight, the stool held up fine in the worst case scenario, being able to withstand 400lbs without being at risk of splitting.

split the room, not the wood.

this stool was never going to be normal, easy, or structural. those expectations were thrown out the window with my first attempt at full-scale furniture design.

the stool was a divisive topic amongst the furniture students. there were two sides of the fence: the side that didn’t like it, and the other side that didn’t know how to feel about it. i was part of the independent party that got a kick out of the whole thing.

stand tall. possibly too tall.

the original version of the stool featured legs tilted at 30 degrees, resulting in a comfortable seat height of 18in. there was no 30-degree jig, so the new height was 24 inches, and the stool became a table.

considering all of the things that could’ve gone wrong with this stool, it went very smoothly. a lot of the tools necessary to create this stool to its vision didn’t exist for many reasons — primarily because of the sheer absurdity of this design. it didn’t defy physics, but it probably made it question it’s existence.

processwork.

peach cobbler.

this was the reference image used to talk about the outdoor furniture on elihu island, primarily featuring some peach cobbler i baked. it was not a very useful reference image, but it was an excellent cobbler.
deck stool.

the first ideas are usually the best ones, unless they’re the second or 46th one. this time it was the first one.
adirondack stool.

the second stool is something i would love to build when i have more time. a foldout, “two-legged” stool with alternating wood types.
triangle overlap stool.

the third design stirred the pot. three legs makes a stable stool. three legs crossed over one another makes a very unstable stool. physics.
one must live.

every designer has had to kill off their favorite characters at one point or another in their career. most designers do this with every project, and it never gets easier. so you make a 'frankenstein’ as alex lobos refers to it.
hard to explain.

an unintentional habit of my furniture designs is that they’re hard to explain on paper. this stool was on the easier end of that spectrum — later projects required miniatures and models.
"scary noises."

it was my first time lathing wood, and i picked the hardest wood to turn, maple. the strength of the maple made it forgiving. the noises made the shop monitors concerned. me as well.
the fun part.

after making all of the parts, it was time to drill some holes and put it together. there’s no easy way to put this, but i drilled into the workbench. the furniture designers were not happy.
stool? no, table.

there are many reasons why i’m not an engineer, the main reason being my inability to do math quickly. in a rush to get the stool together, i didn’t consider that the reduced angle would raise the seat height by 6 inches. the stool became a side table.