Tough Furniture: Kate's Story

Like so many parents caring for challenging autistic children at home Kate found that her son’s bedroom presented some real practical problems. He loved to bounce on his bed but no bed from any of the shops would last longer than a month, so he ended up on a mattress on the floor. Likewise conventional storage furniture didn’t survive very long either. The risks from broken furniture and the difficulty of endlessly having to replace it became so much that his toys and books lived on the floor, making the room very hard to keep clean and tidy, and his clothes had to be stored elsewhere.  While Archie would happily sit the longest hour gazing out of the window, for Kate there was the constant worry of him falling through, quite apart from his penchant for posting the duvet out!

Tough Furniture’s first job, as always, was to do what it says on the packet and cope cheerfully with the hard wear and tear. The storage bed and wardrobe /cupboard/drawer unit fitted are still going strong, with all his clothes and possessions now safe in fully lockable storage, together with an I-pod player so now there can be music in a tidier room. More than this, Kate’s also found that as she can now get out different toys and books every night in rotation they are always fresh for her son and he’s taking a far greater interest, especially in the books.

This left the window to make safe, which Tough Furniture did through their custom design and manufacture service which can be so responsive to such individual needs. Adapting the concept behind their unique range of TV protection cabinets, they made an internal hardwood window frame containing a panel of polycarbonate. It protects the blind and outside glass and is lockable and pierced for ventilation too. Like Tough Furniture itself the window’s been designed to blend into a homely environment at the same time as solving practical problems.

Summing up the success of her son’s new bedroom Kate says : “ Best of all, he doesn’t cry in his room any more. He’s happier there now because it’s become a nicer place to be.”