9 Really Cool Alternate Uses For Caskets and Coffins (That Don’t Involve Death)

While it may be a tad morbid, there are some ways to celebrate the aesthetic beauty of a coffin and take advantage of their practical side without the attendant mood killers like death. Enjoy these creative takes on the typical coffin…

The Honeymoon Is Over

There's so much to manage when going through a divorce so it's understandable if you don't know what to do with your wedding ring. You can sell it, you can banish it to the back of a drawer, or you can buy a tiny casket and bury it forever. Wedding Ring Coffin (actual site name) has truly thought of everything, and even offers a personalized engraved plaque, or you can choose from one of their standard messages such as "Six feet isn't deep enough!" or "Gone and Forgotten." With a ring case this cute and clever, you may not want to bury it after all. [Source: WeddingRingCoffin.com]

Casket Cooker

The Open Casket Bar and Grill, which crafted this trailer-mounted propane grill and cooler from a genuine casket, proves that a coffin can be the life of the party. The rolling succulent sarcophagus is based in Dearborn Heights, Michigan and makes the ideal centerpiece for a Halloween bash, or a retirement/birthday party for that special someone with a dark sense of humor. [Source: Open Casket Bar and Grill]

Bed, Bath And The Great Beyond

Medieval scholars often kept skulls on their desks to serve as “Memento Mori,” or reminders of our mortality. But why stop there? A company called “Coffin It Up” can literally refurnish your entire home in coffin-shaped cabinets, end tables, mirror, sinks and anything else. Nothing says “I never outgrew my Goth phase” better than a death-obsessed linen closet, so if you’re willing to stare the Grim Reaper in the face every single day, they have everything you need. [Source: Coffin It Up]

Sharkcophagus: An Epic Fin

This shark coffin has a purpose, and it's not to terrify beach goers: Raise awareness of how many sharks are killed for their fins to make soup. The installations were created by Creative Director/Designer Handsome Wong of Y&R Shanghai in conjunction with The International Fund For Animal Welfare and emphasized how 73 million sharks were slaughtered in 2012 and "their fins only make up a small 2% of their total body weight, and they are brutally sliced off with the dead animals then tossed back into the ocean." Handsome Wong also created a coffin with rhino horns to bring awareness to that cause as well. [Source: DesignBoom]

Coffin Couches

OK, so maybe you’re not ready to catch some shut-eye in a quilted box, but that doesn’t mean you can’t, say, kick your feet up and watch a Dodgers game from the comfort of your final resting place, right? CoffinCouches.com offers custom-made casket furniture, which means that, yes, you can actually get one that is styled after L.A.’s ball club (as pictured on their official web site). Just don’t ask anyone to grab you “a cold one” while sitting on it. [Source: Coffin Couches]

Bone Appetit

Near the border of Poland and the Ukraine sits a quaint little family restaurant called “Eternity.” The brainchild of local Ukrainian undertakers, the eatery is housed in a giant coffin, and serves death-themed dishes called things like “40 Days” (after a traditional mourning ritual) and the cryptic “Let’s Meet in Paradise.” It’s also, at 66 ft long, technically the world’s largest coffin, too. Say what you will about the naturally morbid nature of Eastern Europeans, but this place beats the hell out of Applebee’s. [Source: World Record Academy]

Rack ‘Em Up

This pool table, named “The Manhattan” and created by Casket Furniture, doubles as a gaming center and an actual coffin for when the owner passes on to the great billiard hall in the sky. While we couldn’t find any place to purchase it, Gizmodo reported in 2012 that it sells for $12,000. Quite expensive, however it might be worth it if only so you can use the joke “How about a game of ghoul?” (See, totally worth it, right?) [Source: Gizmodo]

Head Towards The Light

Argentinian artist, Luciano Podcaminski, attempts to bring awareness to the dangers of the tanning bed with his creation “Sundeath.” However, he made it look so cool that people who regularly tan would probably pay extra to use one of these. (We're looking at you, cast of Jersey Shore… if you're still a thing.) [Source: Booooooom]

Pushing Up Daisies

A family in Dorset, England didn’t realize the garden trough in their backyard was a Roman marble coffin worth $150,000. It had been purchased at auction 100 years prior and was hiding in plain sight—albeit behind some bushes—in the yard. While it’s not customary for people to use an expensive historical artifact as a planter, it’s an inspiring way to show how a symbol of death can spawn new (green) life. [Source: BBC]