Recycled Cereal Grain Furniture -- Quite Tempting To Rodents And Greenies!

Wood has long been the preferred material for household furnishings, but can you believe this -- it turns out that trees are better off alive than dead!

Maybe there's a little more tongue in my cheek than there should be right now, but the truth is that our forests act like a natural filtration device to keep our ecosystem in check.

With far too many greenhouse gases filling our atmosphere, I am among those who would like to launch a TREE-FREE FURNITURE CAMPAIGN from this point forward.

Like so many other green-minded people, I am really excited to learn about up-and-coming designers who are creating new furnishings out of waste materials and other substances that I would have never imagined using, such as the grains that typically pour right out of our cereal boxes.

The Corn Craft exhibition curated by Studio Toogood and Gallery FUMI, is quite interesting because what was once food is now sturdy furniture -- but let's just hope that you don't have a hungry population of mice nearby otherwise they're going to make mincemeat of your tables and chairs right quick!

I must say that I appreciate where designer Nacho Carbonell's heart is with his Crop collection, though.

For his green corny chair, he incorporated corn resin, corn juice, ground corn, barley, wheat, oats and cornflakes to create his molded seat and then anchored and reinforced it with steel rod legs.

Of course, Raw-Edges Design Studio's wooden framed tables laden with stalks of wheat provide a further level of impossible edible seduction for the wet nosed, whiskered set...they could be of cat or dog variety and STILL want to plow through, nibble or at least nap on this willowy textural display.

Rowan Mersh's hanging shelving system woven out of wheat, barley and oats provides a brilliant solution to the question of how to keep these earthy pieces out of the reach of prying, snack-happy munchers.

In all seriousness, this display demonstrates that furniture need not be composed of wood to be earthy, green and texturally pleasing -- finally, cereal bowls aren't the only ones getting exclusive rights to sowing their oats!