Cunningham Design Blog

This Chaise was built for the 2007 Marin Designer Showcase House to rave reviews.

My goal was to build an upholstered piece of furniture that is “green”, stylish and luxious.  Too often “green” furniture looks utilitarian, rough or crude.

The body of the chaise is built from reclaimed plywood and 2×4’s purchased at the local salvage yard.  Before delivering the wood to my upholsterer,  I pulled out all of  the nails and screws.  OK,  I missed one and he hit it with his saw blade, so be careful! (Dennis was not happy!)

The spring system is made of rubber webbing.

The Foam-  is domestically fabricated latex foam from a foam shop.  I liked the domestic brand much better than the chinese product.  It felt more resilient.   This is a non petroleum foam and does not contain fire retardants, which have been shown to cause reproductive harm to mice and is showing up at alarming rates in human tissue .    I used the 6″ foam for the seat, and 2″ foam which was  rolled for the large bolster.

The foam is then wrapped in dacron.   In this case it was not a  green product, but with some web searching, I bet you can find some made from recycled plastic bottles.

The  beautiful fabric is from “Creation Bauman” a Swiss company and is 100% polyester.  This company has a green certification for its green manufacturing practices.   No pollution  is discharged into the environment.

Add some buttons and a pleated skirt and you have a beautiful, tailored “eco” chaise.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 4:23 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.