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There's nothing grown-up about Judson Beaumont's furniture. Dressers appear to twist and squirm. Beds seem to have burst through the bedroom wall. Cabinets shaped like grandfather clocks stand impatiently, wooden hands perched on their hips.

While other contemporary furniture designers might name Philippe Starck or Marcel Breuer as inspirations, Beaumont cites the 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit. "I loved that the cartoon stuff in it made no visual sense," he explains. "I was looking for something different and that movie just opened my mind."

In the beginning, the Vancouver designer was producing conventional handmade furniture to pay the rent and concentrating on his curvy, cartoonish designs after hours. "Luckily for me, people coming to the workshop started looking at the crazy stuff instead of the coffee tables," he laughs.

Though he wasn't designing especially for children, the bright colours and whimsical silhouettes attracted interest from hospitals, libraries and airports looking for ways to cheer up and distract their younger visitors. His designs for such clients include the tugboat at Vancouver International Airport and the maze at the city's WestJet terminal. "I love creating spaces where kids can use their imaginations," he says.

Beaumont's custom-designed furniture - which includes such pieces as the Cindy Dresser, a curved chest of drawers that wiggles up the wall - starts at around $1,500. Given his prices, he suspects that many commissions come from celebrities who are buying through second parties.

For those on less extravagant incomes, the cost can be off-putting, Beaumont says. Clients "arrive here from Ikea and start listing all the nursery furniture they want. I have to explain the [price] difference for a handmade piece."

A graduate of Vancouver's Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Beaumont considers himself a sculptor and has no desire to mass-produce his designs. Soon after he left school, he began renting a workshop space in East Vancouver, determined to work as an artist. More than two decades later, he is still in the same building, although he is now occupying a much bigger area.

Beaumont's company, Straight Line Designs, currently employs a staff of 10. It took time, he says, for people to really understand where he was coming from, but now business is booming. Recently, Beaumont was flown to Athens to design the interior of a children's store. He has also taken on a New York hospital project honouring the firefighters of 9/11 - the children's ward will feature a huge toy fire truck - and he is working on his second Disney cruise ship.

His own house, he says, is very conventional - even his children (now 15 and 17) no longer want his creations enlivening their rooms. "I think the cut-off [age] is around 13 - after that they don't want beds shaped like castles or dressers that look like carrots," he says.

Even so, Beaumont is sure that some adults buy his pieces more for themselves than for their kids. "They don't seem to get rid of them once the children are grown," he notes. "I haven't seen anything listed on eBay yet."

Indeed, some customers will go to extreme lengths to get their hands on his work. "I had a couple looking around once and the woman desperately wanted to order something" he recalls. "The husband told his wife that, if they ever had a child, she could come back. Three months later, she was at my door, smiling. 'I'm pregnant,' she said - and then she started on her list."