Putting On a Room

The cheapest, easiest way to furnish an apartment, it turns out, does not involve a single visit to the thrift shop or the Salvation Army. Now a savvy decorator can pick up a headboard, radio, picture frame, Tiffany lamp shade, stained-glass window and even a bubble-gum machine, all for less than $30--and carry them home in a shopping bag. That's because People Paper is instant make-believe furniture, designed to be pasted onto walls.

It started when Designers Eileen Pittler, 24, and George Brewer, 27, invented a "sticky fingers" peace sign for a Pittsburgh radio station. It was made of vinyl and could be stuck on everything from car windows to people. Then, Eileen Pittler remembers, "I woke up one morning to find my Paul Newman poster had fallen down for the hundredth time." Together, Eileen and George designed a flat vinyl-like, baroque frame that sticks to a wall, can be adjusted to fit pictures of various sizes. From there, the designers went on to produce other kinds of stick-on mock furniture.

In the four months since they hit the market, nearly 150,000 People Paper pieces have sold (the most expensive, a Victorian brass headboard at $6). All adhere to any surface, can be switched around and remounted like a stage backdrop. They also give their owners some grand illusions: of a phone without phone bills, a Tiffany shade that does not have to be insured, and a bubble-gum machine that is guaranteed never, never to run out.

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