Imagine encouraging your kids to doodle and draw on their room furnishings to their heart’s content.
Sound far-fetched? Then you haven’t seen heavy-duty cardboard and paper children’s furnishings.
Artists, architects and designers are turning these materials into chairs, tables, bookcases, window treatments and other designs for kids. Those that aren’t custom-made at furniture studios are sold through specialty stores and national catalogs. They also are sold at the Guggenheim in New York and the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Sculpture Gallery in Washington, D.C.
What makes the children`s pieces so appealing is their interactive quality. Designed to be decorated with finger paints or markers, the furnishings let kids be imaginative by personalizing them.
Naturally, you may not want to use only paper furnishings to decorate your child’s room. However, making space for at least one such piece is more than economically wise. Many of these furnishings rely on reclaimed material for all or part of their construction. Using them in your home is a good way to teach kids the value of recycling.
New City Furniture’s armless children’s chairs are among the cheapest examples of paper furniture. Only $10, each weighs less than 3 pounds, yet it can support an adult.
Venice, Calif., artist and designer Joel Stearns explains the line’s strength by pointing to an idea first used years ago by the aerospace industry. Take materials that aren’t inherently strong and combine them in a sandwich-type honeycomb structure, such as corrugated paper. Often incorrectly called cardboard, it’s primarily used to pack fragile items.
Though New City’s corrugated furnishings probably will endure less than traditional pieces, Stearns believes their shorter life span is an advantage, especially for young people. As kids physically reach new heights, they need bigger furnishings to fit their frame. By the time one of his pieces wears out, he says, a child usually is ready for a replacement.
Stearns goes for streamlined looks. His $10 child’s chair, for instance, has a boxy base and straight back with slightly rounded corners. A $20 armless animal chair also has straight lines except for the top. It’s carved to resemble a small rabbit or a whale.
Stearns’ cardboard designs are mostly neutral to encourage artistry. Any piece can be customized, however, in water-base enamel of any standard color for an additional $10.
On the $50 child-size table that goes with the boxy chairs, it’s easy for a young Picasso to take matters into his own hands. Two corner cup holders are provided for crayons or markers.
Several New City cardboard furnishings suit older kids who might enjoy detailing the framework. A few pieces, including a $120 armchair in the Studio Line, are dressed up with solid-color vinyl cushions and armrests. Among other styles are a computer desk ($100), a scalloped bunny desk ($50) and a side table ($45).
Stearns, the father of a 5-year-old and an 8-year-old, points out a precautionary measure if you’re worried about any design becoming greasy or stained by food or liquids. A clear, water-soluble coating can be applied so spills and fingerprints are easy to wipe away. This protective covering costs $10 extra for any piece. Because this doubles the cost of the basic $10 chair, you may be just as smart to replace it with a new model once food stains reach the yucky stage.
New York architect Michael McDonough designs children’s furnishings from another commonly recycled material–newspapers. They, too, offer kids a way to express creativity, not to mention concern for the environment.
The raw material for McDonough’s designs is made into Homasote, a durable but lightweight structural board. It has been used in the building industry since 1909.
Eco-sTuff!, McDonough’s line, is manufactured with layers of compressed Homasote panels. The line includes children’s chairs backed with various designs ranging from cutout letters and numbers to a large star, a heart or a crescent moon. Legs are slightly angled for maximum stability and comfort. Each piece weighs 12 pounds and supports eight times that, yet the overall folk art look is light.
McDonough’s designs come in pewter gray only. But they are easily enlivened by your child’s hands-on project using finger paints or markers.
Hand-in-Hand catalog carries an assortment of McDonough’s chairs for $59.95. Easy to assemble, they come in 12 pieces with hardware, but not paint, included. The rest of the designer’s kids’ line, which also is made from recycled newspapers, includes low, 22-inch-wide tables with square or round tops and X-shaped bases ($75).
For $10, you also can buy individual Eco-Flats!, the same 13-inch high letters, numbers or symbols that adorn the chairs. They can be hung on a wall as decoration or used as toys. Neither the table nor the wall hangings are a catalog item, but they are available by mail-order from the Terra Verde store in New York City.
Students with little money to spend and lots of moving around to do are likely candidates for Kiosk Cardboard Furniture of Canada.
The brainchild of French architect and theoretician Olivier Leblois, the line is made in the U.S. from 100 percent triple-ply corrugated cardboard. More than a third of the content is recycled material; the rest is from sustainably managed forests.
The Kiosk chair also is designed to accept drawing, doodling or any other decoration. It weighs only 6 pounds but amazingly holds up to 250 pounds. Its high, thin sides fold slightly to create armrests, and its low, curved back has a center finger hole for easy moving.
The most intriguing part of the chair, however, is the portion of the seat that forms a cross piece. Triangular in shape, it extends through cutouts on each side where an ordinary wood chopstick is inserted to lock the assemblage in place. All it takes is a couple of minutes to put the chair together.
Comfortable as well as sturdy, it costs $30 with the chopsticks included.
Later this year, the Kiosk line will add two new items to draw on or decorate however you wish. Besides a scaled-down chair for preschoolers, there will be a 70-inch-high bookcase ($39) with four, 35-inch-wide shelves that each hold up to 40 pounds.
An advantage of the bookcase’s cardboard construction is being able to cut the sides in half to make two low units. For a young reader who needs to reach all his books, the shorter options are ideal.
Cardboard furniture for children isn’t a totally new idea. For several years, Iowa State University design students have been proving it’s possible to turn heavy-duty boxes and carpet tubes into play environments. Working in teams, instructor Cigdem Akkurt’s classes have constructed fortresses, playhouses, mazes and other designs accented only with paint. Area preschoolers test the results.
One favorite environment last spring was corrugated play equipment shaped and painted like fruit. A canary yellow slide resembled a banana; the cherry red teeter-totter was a watermelon slice, the orange seats and table were wedges of a tangerine. Although not on the market, the novel design has been copyrighted by the team.
MAKE YOUR OWN
Decorating your kid’s room with cardboard furnishings is a paper caper that involves both you and your child when you take the do-it-yourself approach.
Consider yourself a bit experienced if you’ve already made a play structure from a box. If not, it takes little to learn the craft. Most of the tools you’ll need are household masking tape, a utility knife, a yardstick, glue and a pencil for measuring.
To buy or make your own paper furnishings, the following sources should be helpful:
– Hand-in-Hand catalog. Eco-sTuff! ready-to-assemble children’s chairs made from recycled newspapers and designed with backs featuring letters or numbers. Call 800-872-9745.
– Kiosk Cardboard Furniture. Lightweight French cardboard designs including a student armchair with chopstick detailing. Call the Art Store: 800-652-2225.
– New City Furniture, 525 Venezia Ave., Venice, Calif. 90291. Corrugated kids’ furnishings, including artist Joel Stearns’ armless chair, computer desk and various other pieces. Call 310-822-0818.
– Terra Verde, 120 Wooster St., New York, N.Y. 10012. Unpainted Homasote square or round tables for children, assorted chairs and wall letters. For mail-orders, call 212-925-4533.
– “Build It With Boxes” by Joan Irvine (Morrow Junior Books, $14). A how-to book describing items that can be made with boxes.
– “Carton Capers.” A free, 15-page booklet on different carton structures made with moving boxes. Write Allied Van Lines, P.O. Box 9569, Downers Grove, Ill. 60515.
– “Children’s Rooms and Play Yards” (Sunset Publishing, $9.99). A book with myriad building ideas including a few for cardboard creations, such as a room divider and table and chair set. Orders accepted by Little Brown & Co.; call 800-759-0190.
– “Unique Interiors in Minutes” by Stewart Walton and Elizabeth Wilhide (Chilton Book Co., out of print). Dozens of inexpensive decorations made with household items including window treatments created from cardboard. Though out of print, it is in some libraries.
– Family Fun magazine. The September 1993 issue, available at many libraries, features inexpensive play structures designed by architects with recycled materials, including carpet tubes and cardboard cement forms. Call for a back issue or a subscription ($14.95 per year): 800-289-4849.
