Portable, durable and 100 percent recyclable, cardboard decor is a cheap way to your house’s ecofriendly factor — and update your look, also. With design fashions going beyond the normal box shape, there are lots of design options to pick from nowadays. When you are ready for a seasonal decor swap-out, the furniture under could be folded flat stored away. While you have the option of decking out your entire home in cardboard, you certainly don’t need to. Ease into cardboard with a few important bits that update a space without overwhelming it.
KARTON
The Paperpedic Bed – AUD 194
Start with a few bits. The robust and sturdy bedframe and drawers within this bedroom could be bought as a set or separately, in case you feel like easing into cardboard decor with only one or two pieces. The Paperpedic bedframe from Karton also doubles as a storage device: It’s eight pullout drawers and assembles in just a few minutes. The mattress is ideal for a guest space because it can morph from one into a king-size mattress and gets the load capacity of close to a lot.
SPACE Architects + Planners
Lighting the way to responsible living. The homeowners of this Queen Anne–style home in Chicago’s trendy Lincoln Park area do their part in creating a more environmentally friendly future, and it shows in their decor options. Case in point: Their entryway’s honeycomb pendant lighting by Gray Pant are handmade in Seattle from salvaged corrugated cardboard.
reinharddienes.com
Dickens and Georgia Cardboard Bookshelf
Make a bold statement with colorful cardboard. This contemporary storage solution produces a splashy, practical and ecofriendly addition to any living room or home office. Reinhard Dienes made his Georgia sideboard and Dickens bookshelves from fully recyclable cardboard in seven distinct colours. Lightweight and sturdy, every snazzy shelf has an edge strength of around 190 lbs, which makes it a desirable accessory for contemporary decor fans and bibliophiles alike.
Kathryn Waltzer
Invest in an contemporary cardboard icon. Frank Gehry did the impossible by alternating the instructions of many sheets of cardboard and gluing them together for durability and strength, eventually creating the iconic Wiggle Chair. It could throw a curve into a sitting room that is overwhelmed with angles and straight lines.
KARTON
The Paper Play Set – AUD 119
Use cardboard in strategic locations. Anyone with children knows that all of furniture surfaces are open to scrawls, doodles and spontaneous art — making kids’ bedrooms or play places a wonderful spot to have graffiti decoration.
KARTON
As you can see, these children understand how to make the most of their cardboard furniture. This Paper Play Set, including a table using a storage pit and a set of six stools, triples as a flat work surface, storage unit and foldable canvas. Reuse the surfaces time and again using erasable markers and crayons.
sarah & bendrix
Dress it up. Want to use cardboard in your home but don’t enjoy the — pardon the expression — stale-as-cardboard appeal? Take cues from this DIY mom, who coated each cardboard letter with scraps of fabric to make a lively and colorful alphabet wall inside her little girl’s room.
Studio Zerbey Architecture + Design
Get crafty with cardboard shapes. This gorgeous piece of wall art is constructed of the most unattractive of substances: toilet paper rolls. Architects Lauren and Kyle Zerbey utilized an online tutorial by DIY blogger Tali Buchler to craft this whimsical bit of wall art in their Seattle home; they colored the insides of a few bits yellow to give splashes of citrine amid a sea of brown shapes. If you want to have a stab at making the wall artwork in your home, protect the natural expression of the exposed cardboard and make the artwork piece water resistant by spraying semigloss polyurethane on the cardboard.
KARTON
The Berlin Method, Eins – AUD 91
Solve storage issues with cardboard. The five iterations of Karton’s Berlin Method storage system can stand solo or be grouped to create an easy way to keep everything organized.
The shelves are extra strong and capable of carrying the weight of your vintage magazines or stacks of dishes.
More:
Tastemakers: Our Cardboard Life
With Boxes to Clean Up Clutter and Inspire Creativity