I looked at my own unused living room and dining room and think I can live with less space. A smaller footprint. How many of you use your dining room a couple times of year? How many use your living room at all?
With less space comes challenges. What do you do when you need the large family dining room table? Or need extra space to sit when you really don’t want to watch Sponge Bob with your kids? I literally tripped over Resource Furniture, the US distributor of the space saving furniture made by Clei as well as a dealer for iMultifunzione, both Italian companies, while “surfing” the web the other day.
A new dawn. Check out their hip and functional spacing saving furniture. See how the table went from coffee table to dining table? This is only the beginning, boys and girls.
Take a look at the below video as the actress unfolds a coffee table to become a large eating table, or when she opens the Murphy bed which is attached to a three person desk.
Each rearrange, pull down, or unfold left me with my mouth wide open with amazement. I needed to know more about this carbon reducing footprint ala space saving furniture.
Can you customize?
How green is the product?
Who thought up this ingenious idea?
And so on and so on. Readers, you know me. Lots of questions.
My emails landed in the hands of Ron Barth of Resource Furniture. Let’s start at the beginning. Think engineer meets furniture designer with furniture. Who else is going to design such practical yet functional and hip space saving furniture?
Rigorous Testing First.
Rigorous testing is done to make sure the furniture is just right. Just to give you an example, Barth explains,
“[t]he bed systems themselves take a year or more of testing and prototyping and manufacturing and remanufacturing. The engineering is done but the hardware then needs to be figured out as well. There is a manufacturing process to the hardware and the cabinetry. It all has to be figured out in concert with one another and all in conjunction with the aesthetics.
It is very, very difficult to appreciate the amount of detail and back to the drawing board there is in making one of these systems. You design it but the hardware won’t make the grade so you redesign it but the bulk is off as the hardware dominates the design, the hardware is redone and the cabinetry and fittings have to be redone and back and forth it goes. Dozens and dozens of samples are required until it is really right.
Then it has to be tested and tested for thousands of repetitions. If it doesn’t work after 2,000 repetitions then that needs to be solved as that is only 6 years of daily use and the life expectancy for the product is much longer than that. It takes different types of analyses and then more prototypes sometimes, etc. etc. there are products that came out this year that were 2 years in prototyping.”
So how does a couch become a bunk bed. Watch and learn. You remember the orange couch above?
To final product. Tada! Bunk Beds! I told you that this furniture was the ultimate in space saving furniture.
What about warranties on the furniture? Barth states, “[t]hey all come with a lifetime warranty on the mechanisms and 15 year warranty on our mattresses.”
Customization
I wondered if you could customize the furniture for your needs. Barth explained that you can customize the closets, the paneling, and shelve size and detail. There are three different wood veneers and twenty five lacquer colors. Got a custom color. No problem. However, you can’t customize a bed’s mechanism.
So, how much is this convenience going to cost me?
I asked prices for some of my favorite pieces. Â Believe me, it was hard to narrow it down to only a few pieces.
Here is the pricing for the Ulisse with desk or dining table or without and with the sofa as well. The Ulisse basic system is $3,250 in white laminate. In wood veneer and/or any of the 25 lacquer colors, the unit is priced at $3,950.
If you wish to add the desk or dining table option to the Ulisse, add $950 to the price.
If you wish to add the sofa option , add an additional $2,250 to the cost provide you choose a category 1 fabric. Note, as you choose different grades of fabric, the price increases.
The headboards costs $550 in any of our fabrics and the mattresses (starting from $1,250 for memory foam) are sold separately.
There are more mattress options such as a Latex mattress for $1,450 as well as a custom innerspring mattress priced at $1,950.
So how green is it?
I peppered Barth with my usual “what about formaldehyde, FSC woods, nontoxic finishes” banter. Â He replied that you can request water based lacquers; however, the chipboard core is E1 not E0, which is contains no added formaldehyde. The wood is farmed, but is not certified. He explained that full certification is an issue with Italian manufacturers.
As for using E1 vs E0, Barth stated,
“E0 material is not readily available in Europe, according to the factory and they were going to have to import it from the US. The cost was prohibitive and impractical and the overall benefit globally was suspect as transporting a container 4,000 miles wasn’t the most ecological thing to do to obtain E0 material.”
As for being green, Barth made one statement that really resonated with me
“Honestly, my knowledge of the real causes of pollution planet-wide gives me the understanding that buildings and not transportation are the principal sources of pollution globally and macro-ecologically. So, utilizing less space would be a priority over anything else.”
Why not be kinder to the Earth with a little less space with fully function and very hip furniture?
Greenmoms says
Resource Furniture Distributes Greener Lifestyle Space Saving Furniture:
I looked at my own unused living… http://bit.ly/ao0bAr
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
ecocanteen says
Stuff I’ve found…: Resource Furniture Distributes Greener Lifestyle Space Saving Furniture:
I looked at… http://bit.ly/ao0bAr
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Heath from buylivingroomcoffeetables.com says
Hi Anna,
I think that these designs are truly awesome. The sofa that transforms into a double bunk bed is fantastic. You know a client actually requested something like this a couple of months back and I thought it had never been done – clearly I was wrong.
I’m going to send this to him right away…
Rgs
Heath
Mary Reilly says
I love the idea of eliminating unused space. Some of those rooms are vestigial: there used to be a use for them, but it’s long gone. In college I worked in a lot of homes and undoubtably the dining room was a well decorated dust collector. The living room has gone the same way now that everyone “lives” in the “family room” with the advent of TV. Some interesting facts: in the 1970s, the average time indoors was 70%. Now it’s 90%. The foot print has enlarged since we spend so much time there.
OK, time to start going outside and creating a smaller living footprint.
Anna@Green Talk says
Mary, great point. Telling people to get outside. What a concept. You mean staring at your greener TV all day isn’t green enough?
I always love your insight. Anna
vanessa says
As much as I love this furniture spending $3295 on a Murphy bed with a desk seems a little steep for me. I would rather build something similar to it. I do love the idea of it though, it’s amazing. I think the people who could potentially benefit from this type of furniture the most, can’t afford it. But, that’s life.
Alyssa says
Disclaimer: I work with Wallbeds “n” More.
This is a great article! It’s amazing all the different space saving furniture options there are out there. Sometimes the coffee table ones are the most amazing.
Vanessa – I agree that while wall bed and desk units are great space savers, they can often become quite expensive once the whole unit has been chosen. Wallbeds “n” More has an option called the U Do It bed (http://www.wallbedsnmore.com/w.....llbed.html). It is a basic wallbed unit that has not yet been finished, and allows you to decorate the furniture any way you want.
However, many of our other options are very checkbook friendly as well, including the Barrinton starting at $2450.00 (http://www.wallbedsnmore.com/w.....llbed.html).
I think in this current economy, where downsizing is a reality for many, we are realizing how valuable space can be. Not only are these different furniture items very ingenious, they also allow us to make the most of our living spaces.
live green says
This is a great idea. We normally don’t use the different pieces of furniture at the same time. We eat at our dining room table and then use the coffee table while sitting. The same goes with a couch and the bed.
Cheap Office Chairs says
Its amazing. Ideal furniture for small living space and saving money as well as saving trees.