When Chairs Grow on Trees

A couple in England are growing furniture out of living trees.

Alice & Gavin Munro

Alice and Gavin Munro’s trees grow into chair shapes.

Some people grow apple or cherry orchards, but one couple has created a tree grove with a twist. They are growing chairs.

In Derbyshire, England, Alice and Gavin Munro shape pieces of furniture out of living trees for their company Full Grown. The Munros grow and mold willow, oak, and ash trees for years before they can harvest the chairs. The result is beautiful and functional art unlike any other.

The work begins when the trees are very small. Each young tree is carefully shaped around a custom frame of recycled plastic. As the tree grows, it starts to take shape around the frame. Other branches may be grafted on, a technique that allows two different trees to grow together so that the branches can grow as one solid piece of furniture. The effort is painstakingly slow; each chair takes six to nine years to grow.

Gavin, a furniture designer, got the idea for growing furniture when, as a child, he noticed an interesting tree happening to grow into the shape of a chair. Gavin says he also learned patience from several childhood spinal operations. After surgery, he had to wear a stiff frame to hold his spine in place while his bones healed.

A smiling Gavin and Alice Munro pose together in front of outdoor vegetation. — Gavin and Alice Munro

Small young trees are growing through blue plastic frames meant to train the branches ot take on a certain shape. — The Munros train young trees to grow a certain way by placing them into plastic frames.

Composite of two views showing tree hanging upside down indoors, their branches in the shape of a chair. — Gavin Munro (left) and visitors check out Full Grown chairs during the development process.

A young Gavin Munro stands with a plastic and metal brace that goes around his upper torso and his head. — This photo shows young Gavin Munro wearing the brace he used as a child.

Alice & Gavin Munro, Alice & Gavin Munro, Alice & Gavin Munro; Photo composite Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., Alice & Gavin Munro

“There were long periods of staying still, plenty of time to observe what was going on and reflect. It was only after doing this project for a few years that a friend pointed out that I must know exactly what it’s like to be shaped and grafted on a similar time scale,” said Gavin on the Full Grown website.

More than 20 years of tree sculpting have taught the designers a lot. They’ve learned it is easier to create a tree chair if the chair is formed upside down, meaning the four legs are pointing up to the sky. This means the Munro orchard is filled with upside-down chairs that cannot be used for seating until they are cut and turned over.

Alice & Gavin Munro

Three examples of finished chairs are on display.

The Munros’ chairs are displayed in art museums around the world, and the luxury designer Louis Vuitton has also used them in store displays. The couple are also planning a program to teach others how to grow furniture in their own gardens.

Did You Know?

People in Meghalaya, India, shape the roots of giant rubber trees into “living bridges” that stretch across rivers. The bridges not only are strong enough to withstand floods but also last for hundreds of years!

What’s a Commode Chair?

Furniture may seem like it will always be useful—someone will always need a chair to sit on or a cupboard to store things. But some types of furniture are no longer necessary. Read on to find out why.

Commode Chair

Like other furniture, commode chairs were made in many styles.

The word commode may sound fancy, but it’s just the polite word for a portable toilet! Before homes had indoor toilets, people used a commode chair if they couldn’t make it to the outhouse. A commode chair typically looked like a normal chair, but its seat doubled as a lid that opened to a discreet compartment containing a bucket or chamber pot. The chamber pot would be removed and cleaned each morning.

Telephone Chair

If you can’t move around while on the phone, you might as well be comfortable.

Also called the gossip chair, this piece of furniture combines a chair with a telephone stand. Before cell phones or cordless home phones, telephones had cords that prevented users from going too far. Telephone chairs, popular between the 1920s and 1950s, were usually kept in a central hallway. The chair offered a comfortable place to sit while talking—or maybe gossiping—on the phone.

Pie Safe

Pie safes were ventilated to allow the pies to cool while protecting them from flies.

If you baked a delicious pie in the 1700s and needed a place to store it away from flies or mice, where would you put it? In the pie safe, of course! Before the invention of the ice box, and then the refrigerator, German immigrants in Pennsylvania invented this special cupboard for storing pies and baked goods. Unlike other cupboards, the pie safe had metal side panels with small holes to allow air flow as the pie cooled.

The Legend of Johnny Appleseed

This statue of Johnny Appleseed is in Massachusetts, where the folk hero was born.

Have you ever heard of Johnny Appleseed, the American folk hero who wore a cooking pot as a hat? Although the real Johnny Appleseed didn’t wear a pot on his head, he did become famous for planting apple trees across North America.

Check out Britannica to read more about how Johnny became a larger-than-life legend.

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