Furniture for Children
Finds an Older Market

May 25, 2004 -- Geoff Hurst and his wife, Kim Davis, recently went looking at kids' furniture and snapped up a modern-looking $1,400 white-lacquered wood dresser by a top designer.

But the Hursts didn't put it in the kids' room. In fact, the Hursts don't have any children. The dresser is so sleek, they say, they're using it in their bedroom. While at just over 3 feet tall it's shorter than the average full-size dresser, it's perfect for Ms. Davis's socks and lingerie. "Maybe we'll keep it for when we have a kid, maybe not," says the 33-year-old Mr. Hurst.

Tung Chiang's 'Uni chair'

Some of the most original furniture designs these days are turning up in the kids' section. From inflatable plastic "Uni chairs" shaped like a sea urchin to bowling-pin lamps you switch off by knocking them over, pieces created with the preschool set in mind are winding up as the centerpiece of grown-up rooms. "A lot of the furniture we sell can be for kids or adults," says Shiya Mangel, design coordinator at Bozart, a Philadelphia toy and furniture manufacturer where a magenta-and-electric-blue kids' table is a popular purchase for grown-ups who need an end table.

Children's furniture has been booming, with everyone from Pottery Barn to Ethan Allen selling mini-me versions of traditional styles. But until now, options for a modern look in the nursery have been limited to what Ikea and a handful of smaller retailers are selling.

Ironic Appeal

Designers like Karim Rashid, known for his brightly colored plastic garbage cans, and Tung Chiang, creator of a sofa that works like a seesaw, are now setting their sights a few feet lower. They're betting that homeowners with modern pieces in the rest of the house need kids' furniture that looks like it belongs. And while some buyers are actually putting the items in their kids' rooms, others say they work at least as well for adults.

Eric Pfeiffer's Chalkboard Table

It's not a case of "Honey, I shrunk the Eames chair," either. For the most part, these designs aren't kid-scale reproductions of modern classics -- they're new pieces created specifically for the pint-size set. Some retailers say that whimsical, child-friendly elements are part of the draw, with touches that kids would take at face value adding ironic appeal for adults. For example, a $225 round table with a chalkboard surface and a stainless-steel cylinder in the middle for storing art supplies has been pressed into service by some buyers as a cocktail table, with the cylinder as a perfect wine chiller. Another work by the same designer, Eric Pfeiffer, a $100 children's chair, is used by some parents as a kitchen step stool. Some adults use New York design firm Truck Product Architecture's $99 curvy foot-high kids' bench as a television stand.

"It just kind of releases people's inhibitions when they're around kids' furniture," says Vasilios Kiniris, owner of Zinc, a modern-furniture retailer in San Francisco.

Of course, some of the appeal is price. While designer pieces for kids aren't always cheap, overall they tend to cost less than their full-size counterparts. Also, designers say, if Junior's toy chest can be reinvented by Mom and Dad as a storage cabinet, it's really a bargain over the long term.

Changing Table by David Netto

Jessica Seinfeld and her husband, the comedian Jerry Seinfeld, bought a $2,820 crib-and-changing-table set by New York designer David Netto for their recently redecorated apartment in Manhattan. The changing table converts to a storage unit for adult use. "If you're going to spend the money on a piece of furniture like this, it might as well have longevity," says Mrs. Seinfeld. "What's great about it is it will definitely work somewhere in my apartment."

Becky McFarland, a casting director for Hallmark in Kansas City, Mo., who is expecting her first child in May, wanted furnishings that would look right in her contemporary loftlike house. On Web site modernseed.com, she bought an $850 Blu Dot steel-and-wood storage cabinet to use as a changing table. When her child grows out of it, she plans on keeping the cabinet for herself. "I can use it in the dining room as a sideboard, or maybe put a stereo inside," she says.

Shopping the Juniors Department

Truck Product Architecture's 'friend bench'

Sales of kids' furniture are 30% ahead of last year at Minneapolis retailer Room & Board, which introduced a new collection of modern-style kids' furniture in February. Among the most popular items being co-opted by adults: $99 "Hop and Pop" seats, brightly colored, cubed and cylinder-shaped foam stools that don't take up much room. At Bozart, sales have been strong enough for the company to triple the furniture line to six pieces from the initial launch in 2001.

If some kids' furniture isn't practical for grown-ups, at least it's entertaining. Iman Lizarazu, a 39-year-old Santa Cruz, Calif., painter and photographer who doesn't have children, says she's recently been shopping at Ikea's children's furniture department. Among her new finds: A 6-foot-tall, fire-engine-red cabinet with wavy orange trim that she keeps in her bathroom. The reaction from guests was reason enough to do it, she says. "I get a laugh every time someone walks in there."

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