Bamboo makes great furniture. Beds, chairs, tables, stools, book shelves, desk, bread racks, folding chairs, chest of drawers, wine racks, clothes racks, cabinets, lamps, chests, coffee tables, benches, work benches, any piece of furniture you can think of has been made of bamboo.
Floor mats and baskets can be woven from split bamboo. Lawn rakes and handles for other garden tools are a common use. Everyday objects such as cups, ladles, photo frames, buckets, vases, paint brushes and planters can all be fashioned from the ubiquitous bamboo. Blinds, bows and arrows, fans, musical instruments -
flutes, panpipes, saxophones, didgeridoos, xylophones, marimbas, whistles, wind chimes, pipe organs, gongs, rainsticks, curtain rods, fishing rods, pipes for irrigation, brooms, paper, fish traps, umbrellas, combs and even manchester and clothing - the list is endless. It is said wine kept in green bamboo for a few days improves greatly in flavour.
Bamboo rafts are probably some of the earliest boats ever. With hollow, watertight compartments bamboo is a natural choice. But over time the ways bamboo has been used for boats has expanded. Chinese junks used bamboo for mast, booms, oars, rails, woven into sails, push poles, ropes, outriggers, etc.
Over a hundred years ago Fridtjof Nansen was marooned in the artic and used bamboo poles and sail cloth to build a kayak to save himself. The Japanese used split bamboo to make a basket like boat for fishing. The Vietnamese make a type of boat from plaited bamboo. In ancient Polynesia the people built big catamarans using bamboo for mast, shelter, rails, floors, and as containers for fresh water. In modern times bamboo has been laminated and used for surfboards and modern boat construction.
Edison used bamboo as the filament for his first electric lamps.