Interiors : Sophisti-kids : Pricey, scaled-down versions of grown-up furniture are replacing cartoon motifs in children’s rooms. Have kids’ tastes changed, or are parents really pushing adult styles on youngsters?

A little boy sits in a wooden chair, his feet barely reaching the ground, and says: “I’ve always been drawn to the simplicity of Shaker design.” A little girl bounces merrily on her bed and states, “It’s really the comforter that pulls the whole room together.”

This out-of-the-mouths-of-babes television ad campaign is from E.A. Kids, a new Ethan Allen furniture line for the junior set that includes cottage-style nightstands and bookcases, overstuffed chairs and countrified quilts and bedding. Also available are Victorian metal beds, farmhouse-inspired armoires, cottage-style chests, Shaker-ish desks and French provincial desks from companies such as Pottery Barn, Lexington Home Furnishings, Stanley Furniture Co. and Garnet Hill.

The look is anything but juvenile; nor are the prices. These scaled-down versions of mommy and daddy’s furniture are fast replacing cartoon themes as the decor of choice for kids’ rooms, with parents paying $800 for a twin bed, $600 for a wicker rocking chair, $900 for an armoire and $1,199 for a leather loveseat.

Furniture companies are pitching the pieces to adults, capitalizing on the fact that older, affluent parents have more sophisticated taste than their 20-something counterparts and gravitate toward furniture that harmonizes with the rest of the house. They’re also aware that parents may be nostalgic for the whimsical bedrooms they never had--but can now give to their kids.

But kids have opinions too. A generation used to dressing like clones of adults, thanks to Gap, can now mimic adult designs in their bedrooms.

Families in this country didn’t always focus such attention on their children’s rooms, says Jo Lauria, assistant curator of decorative arts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

“At the turn of the century not everyone had the money to differentiate furniture like that,” she says.

“Furniture was multipurpose. You may have had rocking chairs that were scaled down or had shorter legs, but you didn’t have whole suites of furniture dedicated to a particular age group. Also, houses were smaller, and people shared rooms. But as we became a more wealthy nation, we became more economically able to differentiate our furnishings. Then I think we had this need for children to have their own identity, and two ways of doing that are through clothes and bedroom accouterments.”

Kids Said They

Liked the Look

The current trend of mini-adult furniture is prompting a kind of chicken-or-egg debate: Are parents driving the market, or are kids truly attracted to Victorian metal beds and whitewashed, distressed armoires?

The kids are, says Farooq Kathwari, chairman and CEO of Ethan Allen.

The company’s TV ad campaign came out of independent focus groups with children from 3-year-olds to teenagers.

“We were surprised at the knowledge of and interest in what they want,” Kathwari says. “They have definite ideas, and we saw clear thinking about color and function.”

Kathwari doesn’t deny he wanted parents to notice the campaign and buy the furniture (they were involved in focus groups as well), but adds, “We did it with the children and the parents in mind. Both are important.”

It’s debatable whether children truly develop a taste for a turned-leg bed with scalloped detailing.

Certainly parents are an influence, says Kathwari, as are television and the Internet.

“I think there’s generally a better awareness of style,” he adds, “and I think young people are more confident. I think 35, 40 years ago they weren’t as confident about expressing opinions about what they like.”

Pottery Barn, which launched its kids’ catalog in January and plans to open children’s stores in fall 2000, insists that its line is successful because the kids like it--they’d definitely let mom and dad know if they didn’t, the store says.

An Element of

Make-Believe

But there’s still a clear gee-I-wish-I-had-that-when-I-was-a-kid factor in some of the company’s furnishings, such as the fanciful rugs, puppet theater, boat-shaped bed and leather loveseat (a top seller).

“We wanted kids to be able to play make-believe,” says Laura Alber, vice president of Pottery Barn Kids. “Something to inspire their imaginations.” She denies that parents buy the furniture simply because they didn’t grow up with such fun stuff.

“The kids are going to tell you if they don’t like it,” she says. “Sometimes when the parents are ordering on the phone, we can hear the kids in the background saying, ‘No, Mom, I said the blue one, not the red one!’ ”

But the catalyst for the line was a group of mothers-to-be. Several women in the company were pregnant at the same time.

“We’d been throwing around the idea for a children’s line for a few years,” says Alber (one of the new moms), “but motherhood really brought it home to us. We looked out in the market for things for the nursery and saw either very high-end boutique stuff or Winnie-the-Pooh--nothing really unique.”

The bottom line, she adds, “was that we wanted to offer casual home furnishings that were tasteful and appealing to kids and parents. The whole house is affected when you have a baby, and we wanted to address those needs such as playrooms and toy storage.”

Color was another important component, since the trademark Pottery Barn earth tones probably wouldn’t work for the younger set. The kids’ decorating palette includes traditional primary colors as well as contemporary shades of moss, raspberry, grape and dusty blue.

Not everyone is convinced that young children have a natural affinity for French provincial.

“I’d like to tell you I think it’s the children who are [driving the trend], but very young children are really not that sophisticated,” says Cindi Burnett of Burnett Design Group in Thousand Oaks. “They still want their Winnie-the-Pooh poster up. It’s really the parents. They’re thinking that the child’s room is a part of the house, not a separate entity. As long as it’s what the kids are used to, they’re not that picky, unless it’s just plain ugly. Until the kids get to about 10, they’re pretty much happy with Disney.”

But that decade mark is an important one, says Burnett, who notices both as a mother and an interior designer that around that age children start having opinions about their environment: “They are amazingly sophisticated, and they’re actually quite tasteful at that age because they’re discerning about what they wear, how their things look. They really do bring home specific requirements for whatever it is they have in mind.”

‘What You Can Do With

It Is More Important’

Ten-year-old Emily Beyda of Hollywood says her lavender-painted room (which she had a say in designing) consists of a daybed with a floral comforter, a long desk, shelves for her prized Beanie Babies and dolls, an antique dresser and rainbow-colored braided rug.

Asked if the look of the furniture or its function was more important, she chose function: “What you can do with it is more important. I sort of designed my shelves, and they had to be at the right height so I could reach my books.

“But,” she adds, “definitely the furniture is important because, like, I have this rocking chair and I always sit in it, and I had to get a desk chair, and I wouldn’t let my mom pick it out. It’s important how I want my room to look. Then I know when I come in, I feel sort of satisfied in a way.”

Dave Matchett, 9, of Sherman Oaks says his room has bunk beds, bookshelves, some toys and pictures of boats and is painted blue (one of his favorite colors).

“I picked out just about everything,” he says proudly. “How my room looks is important because it sort of lets me know where everything is.”

The two are students in architect and furniture designer Alla Kazovsky’s children’s workshop at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Mar Vista.

Kazovsky, of Kids’ Studio in Los Angeles, began designing children’s furniture after her first daughter was born. She believes parents should respect their child’s preferences from day one.

“Children want their sophisticated taste to be recognized and respected,” Kazovsky says. “They want to be listened to. I wouldn’t call it a design sense, but I think children begin to form opinions from the beginning.”

She cautions parents not to impose their aesthetics on their children: “It’s a mistake to think that they might want something because it’s what we wanted as children, like daisies or pink flowers or hearts or whatever.”

The same goes for distressed faux-country furniture.

“It could be very cozy,” she says, “and some people do like it; it’s very trendy. But would kids like it? Something that looks like it came from a farmhouse? Why would something that looks old and painted to look like it’s chipping and cracking appeal to them?”

The trend shows no signs of abating, as more furniture manufacturers update their juvenile lines. The next look may be minimalist modernism for 3-year-olds.

Jeannine Stein can be reached by e-mail at socalliving@latimes.com.