Rooms · August 12, 2026 · 1 minute read
The rainbow on the shelf
Why a set of wooden arches is the most-used toy in the house.
On the low shelf in every room is a wooden rainbow: seven painted arches that nest inside each other. It is the most-played-with thing we own.
Babies rock the big arches like cradles. Toddlers stack them and knock them down. Three-year-olds turn them into tunnels, bridges and houses for peg people. Four-year-olds sort them by size and count the colours.
Open-ended
A toy that does one thing is finished quickly. A toy that can be anything is never finished. That is the idea behind most of what you will see on our shelves.