The Furniture Handbook, page 18
Common Complaints About Cribs
• The bed is too low, thus making it difficult to reach the child and pick it up.
• The whole construction feels flimsy. The crib rocks and sways when the child catches hold of the bars and shakes them.
• The crib and its bars are too smooth and straight, making it difficult to get the wraparound crib bumper pad to stay in place and not slide down.
• Setting the crib up is difficult and time-consuming. This is particularly the case with travel cribs.
• The crib rattles—this is particularly so with cribs that have protective plastic parts on the bars.
Warning!
Having a canopy hanging over the crib has become extremely popular, and the internet is full of tempting pictures. But there is actually an age limit on many of them—for a good reason. Think of the risk of the child being smothered if your little treasure gets hold of the fabric. It’s all too easy for a child to get tangled in a fallen canopy while asleep. Just because everyone else has them doesn’t mean they are safe.
Safety Tips for Cribs!
If you are buying a secondhand crib, it’s important to check that the space between the bars is between 1¾ and 2½ inches (45 and 65 mm), the reason being to prevent small children from pushing their way through the bars feet first, getting jammed by the chest, firmly stuck, and being unable to breathe. And beds designed for children should not have protruding parts that a child’s clothing could catch on and get hooked, once again leading to the risk of strangulation.
• Check once again that the bed is at least 20 inches (50 cm) deep, that is, that the distance between the top of the mattress and the top of the bars is sufficient to prevent any possibility of the child climbing over.
• Does the mattress you are intending to use fit tight to the sides of the crib? It’s important that there should not be any gap into which a child could push its head.
• Are you buying an old crib that has been repainted? Always ask which paint has been used. Children chew and bite on everything and the last thing you want is to find that the flakes of paint in their mouths contain substances that may be dangerous. My youngest son must have been a beaver in an earlier life, with the consequence that many pieces of furniture in our house carry signs of his teething process. It’s not possible to protect children from everything, but the paint on the crib in which they spend most of their time is perhaps the simplest thing to be sure of.
• Once the child is over 34 inches (85 cm) or has developed sufficient motor skills, the usual recommendation is that you remove one of the long sides of the crib or buy a new bed.
• Think about the toys and other items the child has in the crib—things that can be climbed up on. I have some experience of this, having nourished at my breast a little escape artist, a real Houdini.
Source: Hello Consumer
Extendable Beds
Thinking ahead long-term about children’s beds, it might be a good idea to choose an extendable bed, which, thanks to pullout units and extensions, can grow along with the child. These usually cost a little more, but that will pay off since they last the child longer, and given that there is a substantial demand for them, they’ll also have a higher secondhand value. The mattress is frequently a cost driver that gets forgotten when comparing the prices of extendable beds. The child will, of course, need different mattresses as it gets older and grows bigger, so you should check how the manufacturer has approached that issue. Is it possible to lengthen the mattress by adding insets, or will the whole mattress have to be replaced at intervals? What will the various alternatives cost?
Tip!
If you happen to have a “beaver child,” think carefully when choosing an extendable bed. The finish and the overall quality need to be of a higher standard, since the same bed will accompany the child from the time it is teething to when it is losing its baby teeth.
Sofa Beds
Regardless of whether you need a sofa that can function as an extra bed or a bed that can also be turned into a sofa, the sofa bed will inevitably be a compromise. You are getting two functions for the price of one, but rarely the same level of comfort for both.
Is the sofa bed going to be used as an extra bed for elderly guests? If the sofa bed is turned into a bed that stands with the pillows in the sitting position of the sofa, it’s easy for two adults to get into bed from opposite sides without having to climb over the other’s sleeping place. Choose a sofa bed of normal bed height, or higher.
Be aware that the wear and tear on sofa beds often shows in other places and ways than on ordinary sofas, which increases the need to have an easy way to freshen up the covers.
There are several styles of sofa bed.
• English sofa beds: the sleeper lies the length of the sofa.
• English sleeper sofas: the sleeper lies perpendicular to the back edge of the sofa.
• Pull-out or trundle beds.
• Futons.
• Chaises lounges/day beds.
• Armchair beds.
Common Complaints About Beds
• The color of the mattress/headboard does not accord with the photograph in the advert. This usually occurs with light colors.
• On delivery, the bed smells bad or has a strong smell of chemicals.
• The top mattress curls up at the edges, in spite of the large sheet and efforts to bend them in the other direction.
• The mattress slides on the slatted wooden base.
• The actual measurements do not match the measurements in the product description. Check the supplier’s tolerances: a bed is rarely exact to the fraction of an inch.
Materials
The materials that are used in the manufacture of the furniture we buy and use has an importance that goes well beyond the purely visual. A handsome chair can be unpleasant to sit on if the material doesn’t appeal to our bodies as much as to our eyes. An optimally functional piece of furniture can seem ill-considered if it doesn’t also have some element of sensuality in the choice of material and craftsmanship. And if the producer has skimped on raw materials, any benefits of the actual design can easily be ruined. In this section of the book we shall take a closer look at the materials and the qualities to be found in furniture and interior design.
Wood
There are thousands of species of trees in the world, and timber characteristics vary not only from species to species but can also vary between one tree and another of the same species. There can even be a range of different qualities in one and the same tree, depending on the conditions in which the tree grew and which parts of the trunk the timber has been taken from. In spite of that, we frequently tend to lump wood together as one concept, rather as if we were to say, “This meal is meat,” with no mention of whether it is beef, pork, or chicken.
Something About Different Qualities
When it comes to food, most of us have acquired some basic knowledge that enables us to distinguish good quality from bad. But, hand on heart now, can you tell a good piece of wood from a bad for a particular job in the same way as you can tell good meat from bad? When you were at school, how often were you shown a cuts chart for timber? It was a moment of revelation to me when I was shown that a tree trunk has its equivalent of beef tenderloin and its less good parts that are better suited to hash. When dividing up a tree trunk, it is important, just as it is with meat, to pay attention to the muscles—or in tree terminology, the grain, the twigs, the rings, and moisture content. There is a wide range of better and worse quality even within what we collectively refer to as “solid wood.” What were the conditions in which the tree grew? What nourished it? Has it been subjected to abnormal conditions? How was it felled, dried, sawn, worked, and prepared? Which parts of the trunk have been selected? Only half joking, we might say that chipboard is the interior-design equivalent of minced meat. There are times when it can be the most appropriate choice of material for a particular task, whereas at other times it’s a way of coming up with a cheaper alternative. In the following section, I shall explain some basic facts about materials that may help you come to better informed decisions about furniture and interior design.
Give some thought to where the wood in your furniture comes from. Just as with food, the raw materials in your furnishings may come from near at hand or from far away, depending partly on where you live but partly, too, on the location of the factories and carpentry workshops that refined the various raw materials. Tropical woods, derived from rain forests, grow exclusively in the southern parts of the globe.
Wood That Grew Near at Hand or Wood from Far Away?
Anyone making an informed and conscious choice will usually want to choose raw materials produced nearby in order to avoid lengthy transport distances. But, surprisingly often, the same individual who is careful to buy locally produced food will long for furniture made from exotic and slow-growing varieties of wood that come from the other side of the globe. This is worth giving some thought to, if you find yourself craving a specific type of wood that doesn’t grow near where you live or near the factory that manufactures the furniture. And it’s worth remembering that certain exotic woods—even though they may be renewable and are cultivated in certified woodlands—may take several centuries to grow to maturity.
A Hygroscopic Material
Wood is a living material that moves? Obviously, that doesn’t mean that your furniture is going to get up and walk out of the door one day, but that wood is a hygroscopic material—one that absorbs moisture from the air—and is constantly swelling and shrinking in an effort to stay in balance with the environment in which it finds itself—in other words, with the relative humidity of the air and the temperature in the room. This means, for instance, that an indoor wooden floor changes a little according to the time of year: in summer, when the humidity of the air is higher, it will swell, whereas in winter when the air is drier, it will shrink. So, when the floor is being laid, it’s important to allow space for this movement, otherwise the floor will bulge when it swells. As every skilled and experienced carpenter knows, the same thing holds true for the wood used in furniture—those less knowledgeable, however, don’t know the right way to deal with this.
Where we place the furniture in our houses can also make a significant difference to the wood it is made of. The material will behave slightly differently, for instance, if we place it very close to a radiator compared with in a conservatory that isn’t heated all year round, or in a damp bathroom.
The following types of damage can be caused to a wooden piece of furniture that is subjected to major changes in the indoor climate:
• cracks
• bulges
• shrinkage
• veneer blisters
• veneer loosening and lifting
• veneer cracks
• cracks in the color
• creaking
• color changes
• skewing
Source: SNIRI
Left: Axial—along the log
Middle: Radial—from bark to middle
Right: Tangential—along the growth rings
The Importance of Selecting the Right Wood
Wood swells and shrinks according to the humidity of the air. It swells when the air is damper and shrinks when it is drier. The material is affected to a different extent depending on the various directions of the wood: axial, radial, and tangential. Wood swells and shrinks almost twice as much in a tangential direction (that is, following the direction of the growth rings) as it does in a radial direction (that is, from the bark to the core). And virtually no change at all occurs in the axial direction.
How the parts of the log are sawn relative to the annual growth rings affects the technical quality of the wood and pattern (the texture). Also, thicker cuts tend to move more when they swell and shrink than thinner cuts. It’s important to know and take account of these factors in order to minimize movement in the finished piece of furniture.
How the timber is cut relative to the annual growth rings affects both the pattern and the shape changes.
Tabletop constructed from timber with upright growth rings in the end grain is more stable.
Tabletop constructed from timber with horizontal growth rings in the end grain is less stable.
Timber that has upright growth rings holds its shape best given variations of humidity. You can virtually exclude the chances of cracks forming in a tabletop of this sort.
On the other hand, a board with horizontal growth rings in the end grain of the timber is less stable in terms of shape and the risk of damage to the board increases.
It’s important to pay attention to all these things when selecting which cuts should be used for which purposes in manufacturing furniture. If they aren’t taken into account during production, the risks of cracking and damage become greater.
The strength of wood also varies in different directions: it is considerably stronger following the direction of the fibers along the trunk than it is across the fibers. And varieties of wood with short fibers are more liable to breakage than wood with long fibers.
Getting Around the Problems
To prevent warping in larger tabletops of solid wood, a strut fitted beneath the tabletop is needed to hold it flat. The apron at the short ends of the table is also usually utilized for this purpose.
If tangentially cut wood is being used, you should lay all the boards of the tabletop so that the core sides are facing up (as opposed to alternating the boards): in this way the surface of the table will be even, and it is easier to pull flat with the help of the screws through the apron.
Fast or Slow
Slow: Good timber has grown slowly. The annual growth rings are narrow and close together, and the wood is less prone to movement.
Fast: Timber that has grown quickly usually has fewer knots and the growth rings are more widely spaced. This means that the wood moves more and is more easily damaged with changes in humidity.
Knots Are the Birthmarks of Branches
We can trace the growth of branches in a tree from the dark marks in the timber. Trees growing close together have fewer branches. Cultivated birch, for instance, often has fewer knots because it is possible, in cultivation, to control the environment in which the tree grows in order to produce the timber we want. In the case of pine, the pattern of knots varies from one part of the trunk to another. The lower part of the trunk is relatively knot-free in the outer parts; in the middle part of the trunk, the lower branches are generally thickest, and consequently that’s where the biggest knots in the trunk are found; in a growing tree, the branches become more and more sparse nearer the top of the trunk. Knots can both weaken and spoil the appearance of furniture, depending on where they are and what kind of appearance you prefer.
Aesthetics and Economy
While some people think that knots spoil the appearance of wood, others think that wood is lifeless without them. Wood without any knots at all is hard to find, but it is possible to buy it.
The sawing method is also important from an aesthetic perspective, since it affects the surface pattern of the wood. You can choose to saw it in different ways in order to bring out and highlight the visual characteristics of the variety of wood. After being sawn and dried, the wood is sorted into various classes depending on its quality and price. Obviously, a piece of furniture made from the very best raw materials will be more expensive than one made from cheaper materials and with a higher tolerance of irregularities.
Summary of Varieties of Wood Commonly Used for Furniture and Interior Design
Conifers
The coniferous trees most commonly used in the Scandinavian furniture and interior design industry are pine and spruce. Both are collective terms for many species of tree. Conifers often have relatively obvious annual growth rings but not a high density of fibers, which makes the material softer, lighter, and more elastic. This means that point loading makes permanent pressure marks on coniferous wood, and it does not tolerate wear and tear as well as harder deciduous woods. Pine heartwood—the innermost and hardest part of pine logs—contains great quantities of resins, which make it resistant to damp and to decay. Pine is characterized by oval knots and by its brown heartwood, whereas spruce usually has small pearl knots between the whorls of branches.
Deciduous Trees
There are many differences between deciduous trees and coniferous trees, but first and foremost is the fact that deciduous trees have leaves instead of needles. In most cases, deciduous trees have shorter fibers than coniferous trees. The deciduous trees commonly used in the furniture and interior design industries are acacia, alder, ash, aspen, beech, birch, maple, and oak. Generally speaking, deciduous trees have less obvious growth rings since they don’t show the same color difference between spring wood and summer wood as conifers. The wood is fiber-dense and durable.
