I present a selection of the most original beach mats, beach chairs, and beach chaises longue that you may want using or buying for the beach. I begin with mats for a simple reason: I prefer lying than sitting and a part of the pleasure of a day on the beach is the contact with the sand. Chair on the beach is a funny intent for extension of your office or dining room to the absurd limit.
Beach Mats
Let’s try to design a perfect beach mat. There are some factors to be considered: material, color and form, folding, bolster, shadow, and price. There are two kinds of materials used for beach mats basically: straw and different kinds of plastic. Although some advanced technologically designs of plastic mats are made in this way that the sand don’t stick to the mat I prefer straw for two reasons: it’s more natural, the contact with the skin give more pleasurable sensations and the straw doesn’t burn so fast as some kind of polyester do after 15 minutes of exposition to the sun. The form of the mat is rectangular usually, but I’ve seen some nice designs of more elliptical forms.
Unfortunately they are made of plastic, not of straw. As you can see on the some pics below some graphic designs are also more vivid and joyful than inexistent patterns on the straw mats. However I stay with my first choice: beach straw mats. There’s no problem with folding any kind of a mat. Straw or plastic mats compact to small ones. Similarly with prices: both are very cheap, don’t buy anything above few dollars, there’s no reason to pay more. Finally I would suggest choosing a mat with a bolster and a small shadow casting shelter. You can see at the pictures what I’m writing about. I think these two features are the most important when choosing a mat. There are some variants of straw mats with inflatable bolster, but a polyester one with a shelter seems more interesting. I’ll try it this season.
Straw and polyester beach mats
_
Beach Chairs
The most innovative idea of a chair beach that I’ve found is El Compadre, a piece of wood designed by Hector Galvan from a Mexico-based studio Omelette. (Pics below). There are some factors that make this chair unique. First of all I like the idea of sitting on the beach, the chair is only a support for your back. The idea of digging into the sand to give a support for this chair is original and simple. The chair is made of recyclable wood that make it more environment friendly than many other modern projects. It seems that it’s also quite easy to store and carry. Some bloggers write that digging can be difficult but I think they know only stone beaches. It’s only a small hole in the sand; they exaggerate a little I guess. So, if you prefer sitting instead of lying and you don’t need a kind of a chair used in the dining room this Galvan’s beach chair is worth probing.
Beach chairs
_
Beach Chaises Longue
And finally, before we go tanning, we present 3 beach chaises longue from modern design studios. The upper right is a gallery object rather than a real beach chair and two other would be more appropriate for a pool than for a beach. But if you were looking for something more than a straw mat – here it is.
Chaises longue