Chair Chick

 

Living Small (and Getting Shagged!)

Hairy-b-yellow-z
I grew up in the days before children had to be placed in car seats and I remember sitting in the back seat of a candy-apple red '40 Ford that my dad had refurbished, my ankles barely edging past the deep seats covered in roll-tucked waves of vinyl, listening to Tom Jones on the 8-track player as the hot summer air wafted through the open windows. I remember how much time and sweat-equity Dad had put into that car. It was his prized possession. I didn't have the heart to tell him the vinyl seats were hot and pinched when the material stuck to my sweaty legs! Still, the grandiosity of that automobile made a great impression on me. Case in point, I went on to have tri-colored purple shag carpeting in my bedroom as a teenager; a scrim of beads marked my doorway (my anti-adult curtain); and black-light posters glowed from the ceiling. What, you might ask, does this have to do with living small? During the past decade, as I've covered almost every aspect of the design world, a trend has emerged thanks to shops like Genius Jones. High-quality, iconic furnishings for children are appearing in more showrooms as design-savvy parents teach their kids about the importance of good design early. Despite my edgy sensibilities as a teen, my design style did right itself as an adult, but I wonder whether I'd have a different take on decorating if I'd been exposed to high-end products as a child. I also wonder if the world would have felt friendlier with "pint-sized" furnishings to embrace my then small frame. I'd have fallen madly in love with the Hairy Bertoia chair (okay, so you can take the girl out of the shag bedroom but you can't take the shag out of the girl)!

This post is a result of a Veronika Miller-inspired blog-off. See some of my favorite bloggers posting their "Living Small" pieces on these blogs: Concrete Detail, Kitchen and Residential Design, Cupboards Online, DogWalk Blog, EcoModernism, SLS Construction and Miller's post on Modenus.

Filed under  //   Genius Jones   Hairy Bertoia   Kid's Chairs  
Posted August 10, 2010