Stainless steel tubes or half-tubes are being installed in homes and apartments as a fun way to get from a top floor to a lower floor while having a lot of fun doing it. (Click Image To Enlarge)
Take a straight shot between floors or twist up your ride with a spiral. An indoor slide puts the playground right at your feet
For some intrepid homeowners, their home is their playground. Bringing slides indoors is not common enough to call a trend that's sweeping the world, but we're starting to see it here and there, and the idea is spreading. From taking center stage in swanky Manhattan penthouses to providing the fun secret way to get from the laundry room to the basement in Minnesota, these playground pieces are anything but child's play.
We've all got our heads wrapped around an indoor slide like this one, but what about ...
... this?
This slide in New York City's East Village, originally in the pad of a bachelor professional poker player, received a ton of press online, in magazines and on TV. I saw it on one of those high-end real estate shows, and the slide's projected effect on resale value caused some entertaining manufactured-for-TV drama. When square footage is at a premium, taking up a lot of room with a slide is a very specific homeowner choice, but wow, it really dazzles, and I bet it gets the endorphins going if you slide downstairs to get the first coffee in the morning.
The slide was conceived by the creative minds at Turett Collaborative Architects. It connects an upstairs office to the middle of the open floor plan below; it's a half-tube design in stainless steel.
However you feel about its function and the room it takes up, the slide certainly stands up to the 18-foot-high ceilings in the large, open space.
This image shows what the apartment looked like after Joyce Elizabeth staged it for resale.
This slide is for recreation and art; its beautiful form is a huge presence in Skyhouse, an artful Manhattan penthouse, connecting the attic to the guest room hallway, then continuing down in a second leg to the living room below. This place is like something out of a movie, perhaps a remake of Sleeper.
The round opening does not give away what the slide experience will be, which builder Steve Kuhl describes as "severe tubular craziness." He estimates that installing a slide like this somewhere else would run from $2,500 to $5,000.
For those of you considering head-first descents, be sure to have a soft landing spot at the bottom.
COMMENTARY: Adding stainless steel tubes or half-tubes to slide from an upper floor to a lower floor is the coolest idea I have seen in quite a while. Kudos to the architects and interior designers who incorporated slides into the interior design of their houses and apartments. The slides definitely takeup a lot of room, and I would be concerned that very small children might use them, so parents will need to take extra precautions to prevent terrible accidents from occurring.
Little rugrats take the plunge down a stainless steel tube slide installed in their house. (Click Images To Enlarge)
Having said this, if you have a very large home or apartment with two or more floors, and can afford the cost of adding stainless steel slides, go for it. It is obvious that if you are going to hire an interior designer to add slides to your home, that you have already decided to make the necessary financial investment for such an endeavor.
Courtesy of an article dated October 30, 2013 appearing in Houzz.com
Comments