Claire ShowalterAfter wrapping up graduate school in December, I quickly realized I needed to get to busy making a designated workspace in my apartment. I am constantly making, drawing, painting, gluing, stitching, and so on, and after six years of design school, I’ve been spoiled to the point that even my giant studio desk was not spacious enough to contain my creativity (or is that my habit to start too many projects at once?), so no standard writing desk would quite do the trick at home. I live solo and drive a bicycle, so furniture shopping tends to involve my dear, sweet, car-owning friends to help me pick up larger pieces and haul them up the stairs to my second floor apartment (thanks guys!), which leaves me feeling a tad guilty.
Cue the Floyd Leg, “a simple, clamp-on leg that allows you to make a table from any surface material.” Designed and manufactured in the USA, the concept was inspired by the creator’s own need for flexible, easily transported furniture that provides the ability to express oneself. Check and check, I was sold.
Once the Floyd Legs were delivered to my door, I headed over to the architectural salvage at Ballard Reuse, and came home with an oversized cabinet door. While this would be perfect for a simple laptop workstation, I am still looking to expand my work area. The beauty of the Floyd Leg’s flexibility is that I can change out the surface when I find my dream sheet of birch plywood! It also means that if I get a little too aggressive in my making (things can get exciting, ok?), it’s easy to swap in a fresh new table top and get right back to it. Using the Floyd Leg, I was able to carry and maneuver everything on my own, getting set up in a matter of minutes. And if I move across town or across the country, I can simply pack up the table legs into their carrying tote and replace the tabletop when I get where I’m going.
Since first launching their Kickstarter campaign roughly a year and a half ago, the Floyd family has grown to include different colors, a coffee table height, a more rugged utility table, and a shelving fixture, all of which are designed and fabricated in the not-so-rusty-anymore belt of Detroit. The guys at the Floyd office are in the midst of promoting an as-yet-unrevealed expansion to their catalog this summer, so keep an eye out for more creative solutions!
