Easy Design

The Enticing Footstool

It’s been a hard day at the office; people have been pulling you in every direction, demanding that things get done yesterday. You’re tired. You want to go home. Just as you’re hanging your coat up and kicking off your shoes, your partner starts to nag you about the trash you were supposed to take out last night. Then, to add insult to injury, your in-laws phone. Your patience is wearing thin. You – hardworking person – just want to shake the day off, forget about all your chores and responsibilities and put your feet up. This basic desire for comfort is innate to us all. Home is not just where the heart is, it’s where comfort is.

There are few pieces of domestic furniture able to offer more comfort as luxuriously as the footrest. And, most importantly, a footstool doesn’t talk back. In fact, if a footstool could talk, it would probably say something as benign as: “I know you’re tired. I understand the pressure you feel. Let it all melt away. It’s time to sit down, put both feet on top of my cushioned, designed-for-comfort back and watch your favourite show.” That’s not to shabby an offer, is it?

  footstool do for interior design what icing does for the cake. Sure, the cake could do without icing, but wouldn’t it be lacking? Too often we neglect comforts, thinking that delighting in them would be self-indulgent. We’re too hard on ourselves. Why? Don’t we have enough of being hard done by.

If we were to shake off the shackles of our self-directed guilt, we could allow ourselves to open up to a world of choice. We could peruse furniture stores for antique footstools with high-detail stitching, or leather footstools, or footstools with the expert stitching of needlepoint craftsmanship. And what about the antique footstools out there, with pretty, upholstered fringing? Why are these terms so new? Perhaps it’s because we have limited our interior design vocabulary to basic necessities.

Why not put the icing on the cake?

Residential Interior Design – 3D Vocabulary Project