Nearly 30 million trees are cut down every day, leaving a trail of devastation behind. While there’s no quick recovery for our forest friends, designer Hongtao Zhou‘s tree stump lounge chair turns a sad situation into something inspiring. Each quirky chair is formed from a larger-than-life axe planted in a stump, while a second reclaimed tree trunk serves as an ottoman.

The lumber industry has yet to find a way to turn the stumps they leave behind into anything profitable, and for anyone who’s ever had to chop down a tree, removing them at their roots can be a near impossible task. Zhou’s awesome outdoor lounge chair cleverly turns a stump into a sweet recliner, with a big wooden axe as the back and its handle as the arm rest.

Each axe is made from scraps from the Vermont Studio Center‘s sculpture shop. The designer highlights both reuse and creates a piece that will hopefully inspire the public to use stumps as functional objects and educational sculptures.

+ Hongtao Zhou