Furniture made from recovered wood at the demolished Coney Island boardwalk

Last year I wrote about the Uhuru Furniture Company and their unique and captivating Bilge lounge chair, made from used Kentucky bourbon barrels and recycled truck springs. (Read You’ll Never Believe This Is A Whiskey Barrel And Some Old Truck Springs here.)

But the Brooklyn design-build team has since enlarged their line to include more wonderful pieces, including new designs made from wood, steel and iron recovered from the demolished Coney Island boardwalk.

The Cyclone Lounger, below, is a perfect pairing of weathered Ipe wood and reclaimed metal. The lounger’s dip-and-curve shape is a whimsical recreation of the boardwalk’s iconic Cyclone Roller Coaster.

The Ipe wood now used in Uhura’s Coney Island Line was originally installed in the 1940s. Seasonal changes and over 70 years of use have created subtle variations in color that lend drama to the pieces reborn from the boardwalk’s demolition.

This Wonder Wheel Coffee Table is a perfect example. The design has a whimsical, vaudevillian feel.

The Union Table top is made from 3” solid pine, recovered from a 100 year old warehouse near the boardwalk.

Another Uhura design, the Fenced-In Coffee Table, echos an art deco theme. It’s repeating design is repurposed from cast iron fence pieces gathered from Brooklyn brownstones slated for destruction.

The piece below may just be my favorite. The Can’t End Table is made from the end caps of recycled bourbon barrels called “cant”s. Catchy, huh?

This table is part of the same Küpe line as the Bilge Lounge chair, and is also crafted from used bourbon barrels collected from Bardstown, Kentucky. 

The barrels are originally constructed from white oak and the interior is charred to produce the unique flavor and color of the bourbon. The barrels are only used once, and then discarded.

The Uhura design approach is fresh, clean. But the feel of the pieces is historic, almost reverent. I can’t wait to see what this talented team comes up with next.