PLASTICS ENTER THE HOME FURNISHINGS FIELD
For years plastics have been of major importance in the industrial field. Now the chemist's test tubes are revealing new and outstanding uses for plastics in architecture, lighting, decorator's accessories, furniture novelties, and miscellaneous items. The records show that 160,000,000 pounds of plastics are produced in a single year in the United States alone, and that new plastics are being developed at the rate of one a year.
This evolution of plastics has made possible large-scale production of articles within a price range that makes them available to large numbers of homes. A recent issue of the British Yearbook devotes 55 pages to the mere listing of products made of plastic and 30 pages to substances from which plastics are derived. The fifth annual modern plastics competition brought more than 1,000 entries. Top award in the furniture classification went to a display of occasional tables with revolving tops, made without using screws, bolts, and other attachments ordinarily used in furniture construction. At the January and June (1941) Furniture Mart shows in Chicago, Ill., plastics definitely entered the competitive fields for interior decoration, surfacing, hardware, and paneling. There were "all-plastic rooms" featuring dinette sets, bedroom suites, dressing tables, vanity chairs, bar stools, consoles, bedside tables, and sophisticated modern stow-away chests. Chrome and wood were combined into a high chair with a back formed of pink and blue opaque woven plastic. There were bedroom groupings in soft, light grays matched by the woodwork of the room. Plain panel backs of beds were in cedar to match the carpet. Wall paper was plaided in ivory and two-tone gray. There were bedrooms in French Provincial style; others in simple Colonial, or Georgian. Dining room groupings were shown in sparkling furniture that was not glass but was warp-resisting and impervious to mars, nicks, chipping, and such abuse as would require refinishing in the case of wood or metal pieces. The talent of ingenious designers and decorators had been used to aid in producing home accessories in plastics. There were on display table lamps, curtain rods, picture frames, salad bowls and utensils, vases, wastepaper baskets, bird cages, carved ornamental centerpieces, mirror frames, and coat trees. Plastics were shown in fluorescent lighting effects possessing the advantages of day-like light, less heat, less power consumption, and greater illumination per unit of power consumption. There seemed to be no major product in the home furnishings field, including lighting and accessories, for which this "plastics age" had not prepared an entry.
Photograph by Grignon.
Figure 50.—Exhibit 249, June (1941) American Furniture Mart, Chicago, Ill., showing reproduction of wood grain so applied as to take the form of a veneer as an integral part of the surface processed. The chair shows zebrawood graining.
As talking points for plastics in the home furnishings field, consider the following claims:
1. The plastic used for furniture is neither a finish nor a protection for a finish. It is a hard-surfacing substance said to be "many times as strong as wood."
2. Tests show that it is not affected by hot dishes up to 200° F. Liquids of all types and unusual temperatures harm plastics not in the least. These include perfumes, ordinary acids, alcohol, nail polish, and fruit stains.