apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

so you can't really use the office and kitchen at the same time and expect to squeeze thru to the bathroom? i think it's all great, except for the kitchen's inaccessibility and that bathroom issue.

the bed idea is crazy amazing, though.

The updated trundle bed is just amazing. The platform seems to be pretty simple carpentry (and maybe even portable?) After all this time we have been discussing making the best of small spaces, how could we all not have thought of this? Absolutely brilliant!

I just love the folding table with the china cabinet behind! So clever!

I like the concept but not the result. The bed is exposed to the front door violating Chinese feng shui principles. I have seen many apartments in NYC where the shared wet wall means the kitchen and bathroom are side by side so I appreciate the kitchen doorway being around the corner from the bathroom door but I would get the bed out of the way as the most important thing and have the dining area on the corner on the same side as the front door. Japanese puzzle boxes may be different from Chinese puzzle boxes so I may not understand the comparison but Chinese puzzle boxes slip and slide and voila! I find the changes incomplete. I like the china cabinet table best as it reminds me of the murphy bed/table mentioned on AT a year ago. I remain impressed by Maxwell's placement of that long studio on HGTV small spaces that probably spurred sales for the featured adjustable height table. I find that this configuration should be hard to live with. Sometimes you just want to lie in bed all day. I think the secret is in changing that platform. It's overrated unless you have a large coffee table that flips over to a mattress side. I bet in Japan, people have their mattress bed on a hinge that they can flip over on that platform. If the coffee table hiding the bed is bedsize than the seating at the coffee table might be far enough to be against each wall and padded backs could be built into the wall that would not be out of place when the bed is out. That would be more impressive as well. In any case, there's no reason to have a bed on the path to the toilet.

And we wouldn't want to violate the mystical woo-woo principles of feng shui now would we. We might turn purple and suffer bad luck all due to "poor" bed placement. That is unless we had the foresight to put a picture of a kumquat behind the toilet tank, that would readjust our energy and make it positive.

I've lived in an apartment that size, and seriously, no matter what you do, your bed will ALWAYS be exposed to the door.

How can the front door open against the bathroom door? Isn't that a code violation?

The bed idea is great - but how do you live with no closets? And, while the design looks beautiful, where do you put things like stereos, TV, etc?

I created a platform/trundle bed just like their design in my college apartment 10 years ago. It was a great solution for a small space. The only drawback was that I kept losing socks. (For some reason, I seem to remove my socks when I'm sleeping.) When I moved out and dismantled everything, I found 33 socks.