The new, more “home-maker” day-to-day life we’ve found ourselves living over the past two years has provided fresh impetus and appeal for all those objects and tasks that are usually used and carried out within the home. Everyone seems to have rediscovered every nook and cranny of their house. Sorting, sanitising and improving them. Above all, experiencing them like never before.

That’s why lots of suppliers of customisable objects at PTE are going to be dedicating part of their range to smart working, fitness and cookery products. And they will do so by focusing on objects that will no longer have any reason to envy those seen in the most prestigious interior design magazines.

One example? Freezer-friendly stone cubes from Anda Present's Bourbon set, offered as a sustainable alternative to plastic ice cube moulds and presented in bamboo boxes: a trendy, sustainable material. The same goes for cocktail sets with impeccable chrome plating and ceramic thermal cups (the ones by Pf Concept are gorgeous), not to mention exquisitely minimalist jars and bottles in borosilicate glass, highlights from Midocean, Xindao’s catalogues as well as Anda Present itself.

Other categories? Are they standing on the side lines, relegated to the role of wingmen? Absolutely not. In fact, they're learning, making themselves more competitive. Variety, quality and sustainability are the magic words that work flawlessly across all product categories, from bathroom fixtures to gardening tools. Keeping in mind that there are no longer hard and fast categories, rather they coexist and hybridise in dialogue with one another. Emblematic in this regard is Xindao, a company specialising in products that range from mobile tech to car & safety: “In our catalogue, there are no pre-set kits,” declares Matteo Mandelli, Xindao's Italy manager “as with our Myboxd service, we offer customers the option of creating kits with items of their choice.” For example, a fitness box containing a bungee cord with handles, a pair of earbuds and a water bottle, as suggested in the “Idea of the Month” section on Xindao's website. But that's just to stimulate the customer's creativity. The range of viable solutions is vast.”

Most importantly, employees haven’t missed the fact that trump card of homemaking is the room for play: a whole series of board games are being re-proposed, from decks of card to chess boards, backgammon and Chinese checkers tables reproduced by Midocean on Coastgame coasters in cork and MDF.

Then there's the workout theme, which is increasingly moving indoors. A bridge between games and physical exercise could materialise in the not-too-distant future going by examples from the video game industry where there are already specialist sets on the market that allow you to play with your whole body, not just with your thumbs, as anyone over forty will easily remember. Midocean has approached it more than anyone else including Jumpy, a wireless and, naturally, digital jump rope in its catalogue.

For the moment, gadget-promoted fitness remains the traditional yoga and pilates, where particularly useful items such as PVC balls and cork mats are featured by Anda Present as well as neoprene mats marketed by Silicon.

The home also features sanitising kits (including pulse oximeters and medical thermometers) as well as the world of smart working accessories. That is, headsets, webcams, charging cables, USB sticks... in short, anything that might be useful to a remote-working colleague or a distance-learning student.