An outdoor daybed for the pool, the shade and the end of the season

A daybed is the piece people fight over on a hot afternoon. Flexform makes several outdoor daybeds, and two of them by Antonio Citterio cover the usual cases: Hora Sexta, a slim iroko frame you can roll after the shade, and Freeport, an aluminum base with deep cushions that stacks away in autumn. Pick by where the daybed stands and where it goes in winter.

The spot comes first

By a pool, swimmers splash a daybed, sit on it in wet swimsuits and drag it a few feet at a time as the sun moves. It needs a frame that shrugs off chlorine and a way to move it without two people. Under a pergola or a gazebo, it stays put, and comfort matters more than weight.

Measure the strip it will live on. A daybed plus a side table takes the length of a small car, and you want about three feet of clear floor along one side so people can get on and off. Two daybeds side by side need a table between them, or one person keeps reaching across the other.

Hora Sexta: iroko that follows the shade

The factory writes Hora Sexta for the poolside or the shade of a gazebo, and the design keeps to that. The frame is solid iroko in natural, stained grey or stained brown. The backrest reclines on a mechanism in electropolished 316 stainless steel and carries a woven polypropylene cord back in a wide range of colors. The legs finish in die-cast tips with nylon pads, which keep the wood off wet stone.

One version has rear wheels in cast aluminum, so you can lift the foot end and roll the daybed after the sun. Order that version for a pool deck. Flexform makes a soft mattress for it on request, finished with grosgrain piping in the same color or a contrast. Without the mattress, the woven back and the wood dry fast after a swim. See the Hora Sexta collection.

Freeport: aluminum that stacks

Freeport rests on an all-aluminum base, which the factory chose for its resistance to corrosion from weather and salt water. That makes it the choice for a house near the sea. The base comes powder-coated in a range of colors, with water-repellent elastic webbing under square, deep cushions outlined in grosgrain piping. The backrest reclines and is solid iroko.

Two details matter for planning. Fasteners let you hook a Freeport daybed to others and unhook it later, so two can become a wide platform for a family. And the daybeds stack, which the factory designed for safe storage at the end of the season. See the Freeport collection.

Hora Sexta or Freeport

Pick Hora Sexta for a pool deck where you move the daybed often and like the look of bare wood. Pick Freeport for a terrace by the sea, a group that wants deep cushions, or a house with little storage, since stacked daybeds take a corner of a garage.

Both look right in pairs. Put a low table between them at seat height and keep the backs level, so two people can talk while they lie in the sun. On a long pool deck, a row of three or four reads better than a scatter, with the tables in the gaps and the heads toward the house.

Mattress, cushions, cover

Flexform recommends a waterproof cover for each daybed, made on request at extra cost. Take the cushions indoors for storms and for the cold months. The frames can stay out under their covers, and Freeport can go into storage as a stack.

Put the room in a brief

Where will the daybeds go, how many, and in which city? Answer in the form below and the desk proposes a model, lists its finishes and puts the price in writing.