Our New 'Jane Foster Yellow' Swedish Bento Chairs!

Our yellow Bento chairs in the kitchen

My partner and I have always had a thing for bent plywood furniture and over the past fifteen years we've collected many second hand bits and pieces for the various homes we've lived in. I fell in love with Alvar Aalto stools and chairs many years ago but our budget wouldn't stretch to them so we collected similar birch ply stools instead and added bright formica to the tops. 

I couldn't believe my eyes when I recently stumbled across a set of Nordic Bento chairs online, designed by the fabulous Stockholm company Form Us With Love. I thought the design was so amazing and after I discussed them with my partner, we decided to buy them, knowing we'd sell a few of our other chairs to compensate. (Also, we didn't need four more chairs so we work on a policy of one in, one out!)

Not only were we attracted to the style of them, we also thought the way they're assembled is so remarkable - a single bolt joins the legs to the seat and total assembly time is about a minute! The wood is ash and has been made in true Nordic manner. 

The chairs we bought were black but right from the start, we had no plan to keep them this colour. 

Below is a photo of two other colours they originally came in. They were also produced unpainted as natural ash.

We both very quickly agreed they needed to be our favourite yellow colour, the same as our front door, studio door and several other things around our home. My partner knew that there were companies that specialise in spraying furniture so we were thrilled to discover a company fairly local to us in Exeter. The company is called SprayCo and they are a very friendly family run company who specialise in re-painting kitchens, furniture and even pianos (yes, the pianos were superb!)

We had a walk around their workshop and were so impressed with the quality of the finish that we couldn't wait to see the end result. 

I gave them a specific colour to match for me and this has it's own specific code that we're now calling it 'Jane Foster Yellow'. 

We picked them up a few days ago and we're absolutely thrilled beyond belief. Each piece has been hand sanded, primer added, hand sanded and then sprayed in a special room with mat paint that is so incredibly smooth you would think it had always been that colour. 

Chairs in the workshop curirng

If you're also interested in having some furniture spray painted then I'd totally recommend the company SprayCo as they were super to collaborate with. If you'd like to have something sprayed exactly the same colour as these, I've given this company the permission to let my specific 'Jane Foster Yellow' be used on your furniture. 

*I'm slightly regretting selling our piano now as I would have been very tempted indeed to have had it professionally sprayed. (white of yellow!)