It hit me the other day: Furniture sucks. Hard to clean, expensive, hard to move, and neverchanging. For example, let’s look at the Big Red Couch at ICHQ. It’s been around forever. I believe I paid something like $800 for it when we bought this house in 2004. After all the ICHQ flophouse parties, (like the IC LAN, Oktoberfest, St Patty’s day… you get the idea) and all the couch-crashers, it fell apart. The arms are worn through, the padding on the arms is gone, it has dog hair all over it, it’s just generally sort of beat up. Repairing it would be really expensive.
So here’s what Keebs and I did: We just chucked it into the basement. Gone. Bye bye. We made a fundamental shift in the Normal Living Room Paradigm. We decided to go “alternative lifestyle” with our media room.
We put Sumo bags in there. Filled it. Wall to wall. Sumo Omnis and a big brown Sumo Gamer. It is AWESOME. Neighborhood kids come over and my kids are the toast of the town because they are the kids with the “ultimate game room”—several small children can fit on a single Sumo Gamer.
While the Omnis are versatile and highly configurable—they can be bent into ottoman-style footrests or chairs or zafu-style cushions, the Gamer is the “big daddy”—the big puffy monstrosity that you can sink into and get lost in.
Our room is too small for two Gamers (even the smallest ones), and the only downside of the Omni is that it doesn’t breathe well, and it tends to “deflate” a little after a while—so sitting in it for a “movie length” leads to a lot of shifting and re-puffing. Since the bag is so noisy, this can be annoying.
Wasn’t there anything in between these two? A bag with the size, support, and configurability of the Omni, and the awesome filling and microfiber covering of the Gamer?
Sumo heard the call. Behold the Omni PLUS
The Omni PLUS
A smallish box arrived at ICHQ. The FedEx guy looked kinda pissed, because despite its size, it weighed quite a bit. Poor FedEx guy.
When I opened the box, there was a lovely blue suede covering and then the familiar hyper-compressed block of high-grade furniture stuffing – strapped tightly into a tiny block. When you cut those things, watch out. The brick expands rapidly into a big blob. If you want to, you can “break apart” the foam chunks in the bag to make it more even. You zip up the suede cover around the bag, and you are good to go. It’s exactly like the Sac.
BUT WAIT—it’s not. There are straps on the side. Curious, I snapped them together. The Omni Plus bent into a weird bean-shaped thing and then it hit me – this is how you get a bag that is essentially a mini Sac to sit upright and give you the solid back support that only the Omni can provide. Genius! Putting two sets of straps on there gives you basically the same configurability as the original Omni.
This ups the ante considerably. I couldn’t have imagined a way to complement the Sumo lineup – then they threw this one in the mix and I thought “Hey, it seems so obvious.”
That said, I think there’s still a great fit for the original Omni. The Omni is WAY lighter and easier to move. The Plus is definitely easier to move than the gargantuan Sac, but it’s heavy. To move it around, you do have to strap it together to keep it more or less “spherical” so you can get a good grip on it. You have to put more effort into finding your “spot” with the Plus (with the Sac too, for that matter) if you intend on sitting relatively upright for any length of time. However, if your intent is to flop face-down and crash out a la Keebler, then the Plus is perfect.
If you have to pick one Sumo product, it’s really hard to say which one. I’ll try to summarize:
OMNI(original):
- Lightweight
- The least expensive Sumo
- Solid – holds shape on its own
- Highly configurable
- Doesn’t breathe well
- Deflates eventually (not dramatically)
- Noisy
SAC:
- Mega comfortable
- Also a good sleeper
- Not very configurable
- Most expensive Sumo
- Gigantic – takes up a ton of room
- Heavy, difficult to work with
OMNI PLUS:
- Mega comfortable
- You can sink into this sucker! It’s an amazing sleeper
- Highly configurable – although not as nearly as the original Omni
- Heavy
I hope that helps your decision. Each has a special place in our hearts at ICHQ, and each is used for different things when we have big crowds. People gravitate towards the Sac when they want to sleep or just take a quick relaxing breather. When people want to watch movies or play games, they tend to prefer the Omni or the Omni Plus.
I can’t recommend Sumo products enough. I mean seriously—what more can be said than “we got rid of an $800 couch because of them”? They rule. Everybody who comes over loves them. I recommend getting one of each style. We rarely ever do this, but because we personally believe in the value of this furniture, and in the interest of full disclosure and integrity, I will say that we signed on to sell them directly. If you wish to purchase any Sumo product, you can do so directly through Icrontic.
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The ICHQ “Model Haircolor Triple Crown” is complete.
Believe it or not, this is an extremely comfortable position
When standing upright, the thing is pretty tall. PS: Shoes
Get your own models.
Playful poses not included. A shot from the outtakes.
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