New Furniture Tip-Over Guidelines

Furniture tipping over can create a significant hazard in the home, particularly to young children, although the frail elderly and the disabled may also be disproportionately negatively impacted as well. Top quality furniture has always resisted tipping over as a result of use far more effectively than cheaper goods, because best manufacturing practices and materials create structure that builds this in to a large extent.

However, particularly since most people purchase mass market goods, much of which does not come anywhere near meeting these kinds of inherent quality standards, it’s important to read the press release below, and to be alert to the hazard, as well as to ways you can mitigate it.

In earthquake-prone areas such as California, it is particularly important to bolt taller pieces of furniture to the wall in order to prevent tip-over in an earthquake (although that still won’t help with the problem of poorly constructed drawers falling out). In an earthquake, all bets are off as to what will or will not tip over due to construction quality, and you’ve got to assume that everything will fall over. Securing tall pieces to the wall is just plain a good idea everywhere else, too, for the reasons outlined below, just on general principles, and is the reason this new voluntary standard has been developed.

In future posts, I’ll address the question of what to look for in furniture construction of various types of furniture in order to ensure you get the best possible quality, which contributes to safety, comfort, usability, durability, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness, as well as pure pleasure and enjoyment.

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(05/18/2009) AHFA Will Use Consumer Website to Help Educate Parents About Furniture Tip-Over Hazards
By: Jackie Hirschhaut, 336/881-1016

HIGH POINT, N.C. – ASTM International has released a revised furniture tip-over standard requiring manufacturers to include a “tip restraint” with each chest, door chest and dresser taller than 30 inches.

“Tip restraints attach the piece of furniture to an interior wall, framing or other support to help prevent the piece from tipping over,” explains American Home Furnishings Alliance Vice President Bill Perdue, who served as co-chair of the furniture safety subcommittee that worked on the revised standard. “Furnishings that comply with the new standard also will carry a new warning label that cautions parents not to open more than one drawer at a time, not to place televisions or other heavy objects on the top of the product, and not to allow children to climb on drawers.”

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Comfort in Tough Times

I just read a great article by Ted Mininni on the Marketing Profs Daily Fix blog entitled “Selling Comfort During Tough Times” at http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2008/12/selling_comfort_during_tough_t.html. He spoke of marketing campaigns that are softening their messages to attempt to inspire hope, and to “…be able to connect home and values like safety, security, warmth and love at home”.

Arundel Arms Hotel, from Telegraph.co.uk

This obviously ties in closely with what we do as interior designers. As residential designers in particular, what we offer is to create environments that envelope our clients, and help them feel safe, secure, warm, and yes, at home – comfortable and snug as a bug in a rug, insulated from the travails around us everywhere else, if only for a few hours each day. Our homes are always our sanctuaries, but this is even more important in difficult times, when the rest of the world around us is in chaos. We all need a safe haven.

When we think of a “cozy” or “comfortable” home environment, that image often includes elements such as a crackling fire and soft lighting. In times of duress, like now, we also tend towards materials that envelope and comfort us, and create a nest-like feeling and sense of permanence and stability, such as mohair, wool, velvets, rich, dark woods, plump down-filled cushions on deep sofas and chairs, lots of pillows, and the like. Colors tend towards the dark and earthy – browns, deep reds, woody greens, etc., and often carry lyrical names such as “tomato” and “spruce”, which in turn further that sense of homeyness and literally help ground us.

Despite the economy, perhaps now more than ever is the time to invest in your home to whatever extent you are able, to create a safe haven that will help buffet you from the storms around us all, or to freshen up a tired design that will help inspire hope while still bringing that sense of comfort. When your environment is harmonious and supportive, fits your lifestyle, and reflects your personality, you will feel safer and happier, no matter what else is going on in the world. Reupholster your sofa, bring in a new piece of art, rearrange the furniture, repaint (even just one wall), install a new kitchen so you can better entertain at home, renovate the whole place from top to bottom – whatever. Candles are a great way to add light, atmosphere, and even scent at minimal expense, and also evoke a strong sense of comfort.

Buy the very best quality you can afford, things that you find both beautiful and useful, and revel every day in the simple pleasures of running your hands over luxuriant materials, snuggling up in a comfortable and inviting chair with a book beside the fire, thrilling to the sight of that beautiful painting you couldn’t wait to bring home and hang, savoring the taste and love of home-cooked food and the joys of being surrounded in your own home by people you care about, or even just home alone with your cat or dog. Make every day a vacation – and at much less expense – by filling your own home with the comforts and pampering delights you expect in the finest hotels.

Whatever you do, just do something to help make your home even more inviting and welcoming than it already is, to both you and your friends and family – and that will also help remind you that eventually, these times will pass – but your home and the pleasure you can take in it will endure.

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