Recycling Old Furniture by Coating It With Black Goop

Here's a unique way to reuse old furniture and seal up any bedbugs lurking inside: Coat it with a smothering layer of shiny, dripping polymer.

The immediate images conjured by this "Dermis" line of furniture, by Mexican designers Villasana, Plasencia, et al., might be those horrible petroleum-covered birds flapping about in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Hungry people might also think of chocolate-covered strawberries. But put one of these gloppy babies inside a Manhattan loft and it starts to assume an outrageous, artistic quality – call it "Oil-Slick Chic."