The Babble Review: BBO2 Chair from LOLL and notNeutral

Chris Ford’s glimpse of the new furniture line from notNeutral and Loll Design at ABC Kids had us drooling (imagine that), so we got ahold of one of the new BBO2 chairs and put it through its paces.

Here’s how it went down.

The tester: my daughter.

The putter-together-er: Me, with help from my husband’s able allen key turning hands

The discovery: Chairs double as choo-choo trains, complete with sound effects.

Straight out of the box, I was impressed with a bag of “hardware” that consisted of 10 bolts and one allen wrench. No drill? I could handle this. Er, not exactly. It’s an easy and quick assembly, but it takes one adult to hold the pieces together, one to do the bolting.

Five minutes later, no grunting, no turning the instruction upside down and inside out, we had it together. Commence choo-chooing.

The BBO2 is Loll Designs and notNeutral’s attempt to bring modern design to outdoor furniture for kids. Hence a purely plastic piece of furniture with clean lines. The angle of the back is not as steep as the Adirondack, keeping them from dropping into the chair (and developing that habit).

It earns its stripes for being supremely easy to keep up. No painting the wood, and if you live in the wintery northeast (as we do), it can be left outside . . . or brought in where it’s size makes for an extra seat for the kids for knees up to the coffee table for family game night. It’s suggested for ages three and up, and my four-year-old has room to grow, and did we mention its second use as a choo-choo?

Bonus: made from recycled plastic, it’s mostly milk jugs. So when you tell your tot they need to toss the milk container in the recycling bin, you can haul this out as a reason why.

It retails for $190, but the BBO2 is 10 percent off right now at Loll Designs – get it for $171!