“Sit,” said Jennifer Esposito, indicating a half-moon cushion on the floor of her Hudson Street loft. It was one of Jenny’s Blocks, her new line of children’s furniture-as-plaything.

“It’s nice and dense,” I said, relieved not to have squashed it with my near-200 pounds. “But light enough that kids can move them around but not throw them.”

“They do throw them,” she said, giving me a look that questioned whether I’d ever even been around children.

After working as a stock trader on Wall Street for 10 years, she became a stay-at-home mom to her three sons. “Now my youngest is at preschool,” she said, and she’s antsy: “I like to do something.” That something is interior design, decorating clients’ homes as well as developing products such as Jenny’s Blocks. The cushions come in various shapes—half-moons, crescents, circles, squares, triangles—that kids can deploy in creative ways. “My kids have used them to make a ball pit, a lava pit, a stage and seating areas for Rock Band concerts….” One of her sons recently built a library with the cushions. “He brought out all the books for one area, newspapers for another, then he made library cards for the whole family on the computer.” Kids being kids, they also just love rolling the round cushions down the loft’s long center hallway or turning the crescents on their sides and rocking in them. The child in me wished I had had Jenny’s Blocks way back when, to make forts with; the adult in me coveted Jenny’s Apartment.

For parents, part of the appeal is that when not in use, the shapes can be arranged into one piece of furniture—assuming you have the right shapes, of course. Pieces are sold individually (half moons are $300) or in sets, such as the ottoman, right ($3,600). A variety of fabrics are available—Esposito’s seven-year-old son helped pick colors in the fabric district.

Jenny’s Blocks aren’t the only way Esposito marries form and function. She also has a product called the Invisible Pillow—instead of foam stuffing, kids can hide their plush toys inside. She also designs custom wallpaper that incorporates clients’ photos into a mosaic; after all, so many of us have thousands of photos on our computers that we never look at.

For more information, see jenniferespositodesign.com or call 917-226-0800.