Monday, September 3, 2012

Collapsible Furniture for the Fam


This is a guest post.

It’s possible for furniture to be modern, to use sustainable building products, and to sell at a low price – but rarely does one item achieve all three of these objectives. Cheap furniture is rarely modern or sustainable. Sustainable furniture, meanwhile, is rarely cheap. This is a catch-22 that many families find themselves dealing with quite often.

A new California-based startup company seeks to change that. SmartDeco Furniture, founded last year by University of Southern California student Trent J. Mayol, offers a line of furniture that strives to produce a product with contemporary form, fully sustainable materials, and prices that frugal families can afford. Thanks to enviroboard, a corrugated fiberboard that looks like a washed cardboard, SmartDeco appears to have pulled off all three of its normally dissimilar objectives.


Enviroboard is strong yet lightweight, affordable yet fully recyclable. As a building material it offers a soft and smooth white look. From far away, a piece of furniture built with enviroboard looks sleek, smooth, and stripped-down, with sharp corners and a stylish utilitarian feel. It is only upon closer examination that the material begins to resemble a high-quality cardboard design.

This design is great for home use, because while it's sleek it has the strength and durability to provide a foundation for a variety of heavier furnishings: televisions in entertainment units, sculptures, fixtures that allow you to get bulkier materials to hang on curtain poles.

SmartDeco has thus far produced a line of dressers, desks, and nightstands, all of which are priced well below standard levels. The desk is priced just under $60, the dresser is $65, and the nightstand can be had for $35. All of these priced are highly competitive ones, even when compared to the used furniture market. The material from every product is 100% recyclable.

This is ideal for families looking for practical furniture solutions.

Will SmartDeco furniture ultimately succeed in being all things modern, sustainable, and affordable? That remains to be seen. But for those who desire all three and don’t need custom company apparel, SmartDeco definitely appears capable of offering a durable and appealing product.

The company hopes to expand its product line as new funding opportunities emerge. It can probably be assumed, however, that it won’t stray far from “frugal family-style” furniture when this occurs.

See my disclaimer.