This Floor Cushion Is the Best Seat in the House
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I host a lot, and providing enough seating in every Brooklyn apartment I’ve ever lived in has always proved a challenge. When I moved into my current place a few years ago, I knew one solution for the living room — which houses not just a decent-size couch but also side tables, my desk, a record player and storage, a large TV and console, and bookshelves — would be to buy a floor pillow.
This is not a revolutionary idea. Floor seating takes up, you know, floor real estate — but it’s inherently flexible in a way chairs, stools, and even ottomans are not.
Still, picking one out that we would really use, and that our friends wouldn’t feel like was the loser seat when they were last to settle, proved a challenge. Many styles are cute but not actually comfortable. I don’t like the tufted round ones with a hard button at the center because you can feel it when you sit. I find many are too thin — good enough to park on for a moment but not for the duration of a movie, which is a requirement in our household. Others are too firm and thick: not quite ottoman, not quite floor pillow, and prove difficult to balance on in a natural way.
Finally, after much research, I stumbled upon this cushion in the kids’ section at West Elm. (If you’re not already aware, we’re big fans ofshopping the kids’ section for adult usehere.) It seemed to have all the attributes I was hoping for, so I ordered it. Three years later, it remains one of my favorite items in my home.
Despite its department designation, it is, in fact, the perfect size for a fully grown person (for reference, I’m five-four, and my partner is five-eleven). Maybe it’s evenmorefun for a small child to collapse into, but there is plenty of surface area to sit fully crossed-legged on this thing without any limbs hanging off. I can also position my body such that I’m lying on my side, head propped up by my hand, and the full length of my arm down to my hip bone is padded and supported.
I’ve had friends share it, able to comfortably lean down in various ways so that they get at least some coverage of their body. On the occasions when we’re eating dinner in the living room, I like that I can sit on it and be level with my coffee table (I hate leaning down from the couch to take bites, and I hate holding my plate up there in my hand). There’s enough plush inside so that it feels substantial, but it’s not awkwardly tall, and it sinks down just enough so that I feel like I can really relax.
The handle on the end makes it easy to carry upstairs, where we sometimes watch movies in my partner’s office (he’s a film editor, so he has a screen up there, too). We have the natural color, which somehow looks nearly as good as new, despite the fact that it’s several years old and has seen outside clothes, many meals, and definitely some spills (Folex carpet cleanerandTide to Go pensare my saviors for spot-cleaning).
It has become affectionately known among all our friends as “the dog bed” — not onlynotthe loser seat, but a favorite among everyone.
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West Elm Kids Floor Tent Cushion
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