One great piece of furniture we miss from our time overseas is our storage bed. It had a platform under the mattress that lifted up on gas pistons to reveal a storage area underneath. I’ve seen a couple versions of the same design here in the US, but in Taipei we were able to go to a store down the street, give them our measurements, and get one made to our specifications and delivered to our apartment—for a great price.
On the great plains of the Midwest, we’re not as concerned about saving space as people are in highly populated cities. But as they say, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” so there are plenty of folks in tight places who’ve invented their own space savers.
One company that’s doing its part is Canada-based Expand Furniture. Here’s a video that gives a sampling of what they offer:
Cool, huh?
And then there’s Resource Furniture, out of New York City. I particularly like their hide-a-bunk-bed at 2:52.
Singapore’s Spaceman has their own collection, too, including a pull-down “ceiling bed,” at 1:55.
And from Germany, here’s a quirky little film on a quirky little table. (Or is it a painting on the wall?) At its Vimeo site there’s a description that could fit most of the furniture shown in this post. I don’t think it was originally written in English, but that makes it all the better:
The underlying innovation is: its inventive folding mechanism, the evoked astonishment due to the second-to-second transformation of the room situation, the easy handling and the therewith connected pleasure of converting, the particular invisibility of the currently not used version as well as the newfound use of space diversity.
[photo: “Miniature Striped Mattress and Bed,” by Stéphanie Kilgast, used under a Creative Commons license]
Clearing Customs 