Furnishing a Tiny House and Cupboard Beds

This column came from a salvage shop.  There are two of them.  I built the pedestal portion.  They are great for dividing up a large space to hint at a different room without taking up the visual space of something heavier 

 

 

You may be into certain styles of furnishings, and your limited space can be accommodated with almost any style of furniture.  Most styles of furniture have smaller scale pieces that would be perfect for a small house.  The main objective is not to look for only tiny furniture.  Trimmer scale is perhaps the watch-phrase.  Cheap furniture found in discount, heavy advertising stores tend to be huge.  They make up for the mosaic of tiny pieces of marble or granite glued together to make the top of a coffee table by making the table huge.  They use inferior wood, colored and finished by spray-on, wood-colored finishes, and massive pieces of wood making the legs and aprons.  The upholstered furniture is heavily padded with cheap, loosely fitted upholstery fabric, so they use yards and yards of fabric and mounds of cheap foam padding to make aircraft carrier sized couches.  Eventually the foam collapses and the whole thing looks like the sagging skin of an old person,...before the face lift.  Our basic problem these days is that we use the furniture differently.  When I was a kid, and certainly for centuries before...as long as couches were available, one would seat several people on a couch, one might gracefully recline on a couch in a fainting spell, it might serve as an alternative to bed when your wife was angry with you, or you might sit on the couch balancing a cup of tea on your knees.  Now, all people do is Schlump on the couch.  Pad it more, because we will be hours a day draped on the couch to watch TV while eating chips and dip off a bowl on the floor.  By the way, the dog will very likely be there on the couch with you along with all the drippings from your snack food.  As I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, I do not remember lying down on the couch except when I was sick and my mother did not want to go upstairs to tend me.  You may want to rethink this position...sorry...that was a cheap one.  
The trick is to find a three seat couch, long enough to lie down on, that has trim dimensions.  Avoid over padded upholstery, big cushions in massive piles, and enormously deep seats.  When you sit down in it, the backs of your knees don't make it to the edge of the seat, so you can't comfortably sit in it with your feet flat on the floor.  This is how people get blood clots!

 

This camel-back couch is long enough to stretch out on and sleep comfortably.  I am 5 feet 10 1/2 inches tall.  Notice that these Colonial styles have little excess padding, and space underneath for storage.  I may slip cover this someday as I am not in love with the green velvet.  When I do, this could have a skirt to hide storage.  As it is now, it is very light looking.  It takes up little visible space.  Similar Sheraton styles sometimes have straight up and down wooden arms as well, if you absolutely hate the rolled arms. You would also save 8 or ten inches of length.

Tight upholstery, good quality, no fluff...It will look like a tuxedo on a trim young man, instead of a bulky sweater on a fat person.
Look at computer images of Hepplewhite and some Sheraton tables.  They are light, spider web-like designs that you can see through.

This is a French style...Too light for Louis XIV; not straight enough for Louis XVI; so I guess I will settle on Louis XV...I am a little weak on French styles.  I HATE the upholstery...very 80s.

It is very small, but exceedingly comfortable.  The most comfortable chair in the house with it's big poufy down filled seat.  Made in the 1910s or 1920s, I think.   $300.00 at auction if I remember correctly.  They came from an estate on Long Island  

Skinny chrome tubing is used in some modern tables, sometimes with travertine marble tops etc.
Use an old trunk for a coffee table.  Not the big steamer varieties, but trim, six board trunks that were used as dowry chests, sea chests and tool chests in the 18th and 19th century.


I took the front of an antique Altar from Kashmir and added a box to the back, two marble tiles for the top and square screw on legs from Home Depot to make this side table that doubles for storage.  It is 24 inches wide, 26 inches high and 12 inches deep.  The front doors open to reveal a god or your tax files.

This is a round topped table that my uncle and mother made from narrow white pine or perhaps spruce boards in the 1940s. The top is a 17 inch round and it is 21 inches high.  Easy to make, it takes up little room, but the spidery legs and holes cut out of it make it look even smaller than it is.  I will post the plans sometime.  Yeah, the dusty openings in the base are hearts.  I am a bachelor...what can I say about the dust?

 

I made this table by bolting together the two separated halves of a 19th century iron garden urn.  The top is a 24 inch glass round from Michael's craft store.  I could have gone smaller.  I fill it with decorative objects that I have collected and cover the top with the glass so it is dust free.  The actual urn is 20 inches in diameter by 24 inches tall.

 

 

This is a reproduction of a 19th century picnic box from China.  The top comes off, and there are compartments inside.  I had a glass top cut for it to fit at my local glass store.  I have room enough in it to store enough family Christmas ornaments for a small tree...or a good sized one for that matter.    12 inches deep by 17 inches wide by 28 inches high.

 

 

Remember The Bombay Company?  There was not super quality available, but everything was a little undersized.  Notice the Hepplewhite-like legs.  It makes the table appear even smaller than it really is.  I think I paid $25.00, on sale, for it a few years back, before they closed, and it took twenty minutes to assemble.  Is The Bombay Company still open somewhere?  20 inches wide,13 inches deep by26 inches tall.

 

 

 

This is a really interesting piece.  It is a Chinese Jewel Chest.  It is presently hanging on the wall and is being used as a hall table.  It is less than 11 inches high and perhaps 9 inches deep.  But it is nearly 5 feet long.  It is made of thin wood,  simply but nicely joined and painted.  It began life as a chest used for storage of valuables.  It would stand on a shelf or hang on the wall over the headboard of your bed so thieves had a hard time getting to it while you slept!  Too funny!  Unlike the picnic hamper-table this one is an antique, but a good idea to reproduce.  Also, it would be easy to build.

 

You do not have to be rustic or super modern and streamlined to live in a small space.  As I said in an earlier post, this is your chance to live in a jewel box with the best interior possible, made more affordable by it's small size.  Just keep colors light, or even extremely dark and rich...the in-betweens give you trouble.  Avoid ambers, caramels and golds, as they suck the light out of a room.  If you go to Marble House in Newport Rhode Island, the most Human room in the place is Mrs.Vanderbilt's oyster and blue study.  It is much smaller than the first building project I have posted and extremely elegant.

 

A Box Bed

Plan on the long side of the bed against the wall.

In colonial and earlier times, people often slept in a Box Bed.  In fact this goes back centuries and centuries. Generally this bed would be filled with down feather beds.   This might be a problem in these days of  mold phobias, etc.  I can see this working out well using a simple mattress, crib mattress or even a nice Memory Foam layer or two. 

Basically, how this works is by building a box.  Use hardwoods if you can, as they are very rigid.  They do not splinter with handling, and look nice. I would love to make one of these with a figured birch or maple.  The bottom is unlikely to work for long term use with anything but a good 3/4 inch plywood. A birch veneer will be good for looks.

In building this, you will have to raise the plywood off the ground by about an inch in order to dado the bed's plywood foundation into the frame.  Solve the resulting support issues where the center of the bed is unsupported, by gluing and nailing on a pattern of 1 inch thick wood as a decoration on the bottom of the bed.  This will act as a decorative pattern when the bed is closed. 

I am assuming that you will do this as a twin bed or smaller, but if you have the strength to lift this up (it is actually hollow after all) then a full or larger bed might be fine.



 See the post on Blithewold for more on this Breton box bed.

 

 

First, cut four sides that are the same width as the thickness of the mattress plus about an inch and three quarters.  You may make this with much wider boards if you wish, as raising the sides of the bed would alleviate some drafts that hug the floor. The longer sides(the long axis) should be longer than the narrow sides, by twice the thickness of the wood.  The thicker the wood used on the frame the stronger it will be, but also the heavier it will be.  Cut corner blocks to fit in the inside corners of the bed as a gluing brace.  The end view of the blocks would be triangular as the corners of the mattress will not fill that area. 

Using a Dado head for your table saw, or a jointer or router, cut a Dado the length of the four boards 1 inch from the edge.  The two longer sides should not have the Dado continue all the way to the ends.  Stop about a quarter inch from the end.  Again, the thicker the boards for your frame, the deeper the Dado can be, and the stronger it will be.

Cut the plywood to fit the frame and into the Dado.   Assemble the four sides with the plywood in the Dado.  Glue and screw the joints together with exceptionally long screws as you are screwing into End Grain. Countersink and plug the holes.(Plugs can be purchased from suppliers in the same or highly contrasting woods like ebony or walnut, to be glued into the holes and sanded flush.  Glue and screw the corner braces into the corners, flush with the top edge.  This brace will the sanded and molded along with the frame.

Hardwoods are very unforgiving when it comes to fasteners.  You cannot easily drive nails...Well, you can, but avoid anything near the end or edge of a board,, and you need a strong arm.  almost always count on pre-drilling holes for nails and for screws.  With screws, you should drill for the main shaft of the screw, just a bit smaller than the threaded part of the screw..., then you will have to drill in the same hole for the width of the un-threaded shaft, and a countersink hole for the head of the screw to disappear below the surface.  They do make bits that will do the whole think with one go.  Do not try to over screw into a hardwood board.  In softwood, it is not uncommon to screw till the fibers are slightly crushed by the head of the screw...do not try this with hardwood, because YOU WILL SPLIT IT, or you may break off the screw.  If you are having a hard time screwing the screw into the wood, and this goes for all projects using screws, rub a bit of bar soap onto the threads to lubricate them as they enter the wood. 

Sand the entire frame and round all the corners and edges with a router.  ALL EDGES!  As some will be showing from the front when the bed is closed.

Place the box against the wall with the opening toward the wall.  Screw a full length(Full length just for looks really.) Piano Hinge to the floor and into the outside(Bottom) edge of the frame.  The bed should hinge down to the floor to lay flat, and rise to the wall when not in use.  The frame should be about a quarter to a half inch from the wall as the hinge will allow it to lean slightly inward.  It will be more stable and less likely to fall away from the wall by accident.

Screw and/or glue an all over pattern of 1x2 boards to the outside plywood bottom.  A trellis pattern, a Chinese fretwork pattern, or just a series of concentric rectangles would work.  Sand them as well.

 

Now measure from the floor to the top of the box against the wall.  Add about half an inch, plus the thickness of the boards you are using to that length.  The boards should be about an inch wider than the box measures from the wall at floor level.  Now measure the length of the box, plus one inch and twice the thickness of the wood you are using. 

Cut a 45 degree miter on both ends of the long board, and one end of each of the smaller boards.

Glue and screw the mitered ends together into a "C" shape. Then sand the whole thing, and round the edges of the frame that will not be touching the wall.

With the bed box closed, place the three sided frame around the box against the wall.  This will form a shelf  or console table.  (You could make this any width, and even make a real table of it, perhaps a curved top.)  You should make sure before you cut the legs to length, that they will be long enough for the box to close smoothly without the frame hitting the underside of the top.

Again, countersink and fill the holes from the screws. 

Put an oil finish or water base varnish on the entire bed and table, or paint the whole thing.  You can use cheaper woods if you will paint.

Put two nice decorative handles,(that will not interfere with the box resting on the floor) on the right and left top corners of the box bottom.  If you cannot find an appropriate handle, just drill a couple of one inch finger holes in the bottom, near the top corners.

This would be great under a high window for a double bed, or a regular window for a twin.  You end up with a console table and a bed.

Do not put a set of shelves or heavy objects above the bed as you could get an avalanche if the bed or occupants are too restless or banged against the wall.   

Nail with bright finish nails diagonally through the legs of the construction into the floor and the sill plate of the wall, and nail and countersink into the wall studs along the top. 

This whole thing would work better if you do it before you put baseboards or molding on the base of the walls.  You will have to adjust all your measurements to go around the moldings or cut them out if you are retrofitting.

If you can find antique hinge pins, they often have decorative knobs on one end.  With the bed closed, drill a hole through the center of the leg of the console, about 6 inches from the top, and right through the bed frame.  Do the same on the other end.  Now, if you put the pin through the hole, it will be difficult for the bed to open unintentionally, like when a kid plays with the handles.  If you put the holes through the top of the table, they will be out of the reach of a child. 

 

 An Austrian cupboard bed courtesy of Wikipedia

 

 

An Alcove Bed.   

 



 We have an issue in this country with big beds.  There must be some connection with central heating or something.  There was a time when it was chilly in your bedroom at night, at least when extra curricular activities were not going on.  I know from living in an 18th century house in Maine, that cuddling in bed is a wonderful thing. 

Usually, we see these people in the home buying TV shows saying..."Oh, no...Our bed is a King or a California King".  Strangely, it is usually the little 5'2" men and women who are saying that.  Heavens, I could put the two of us, a Great Dane and a pony in a bed that size!

In a tiny house, you have to compromise.  In addition to that, if you are in the great north woods with a fireplace or wood stove that cools toward morning, you will be very grateful for a smallish bed.

In this case I am going to advocate a 3/4 bed.

A twin bed is usually 38 or 39 inches by 75 inches.  I actually like two people...if they like each other...in a twin.

A full size bed is 54 by 75 inches.  Plenty of room.

For the tiny house you might try to lay your hands on a 3/4 bed.  They are not necessarily an easy thing to find, though many companies will willingly custom make one for you.  If you cannot find one, you might try a foam pad.  As mentioned above, the old timers might have stacked up half a dozen feather beds to provide a sleeping surface.  Today, of course, that would run into the hundreds and hundreds of dollars.  Memory foam might also make the grade.

 

An alcove bed was built to enclose the sleeper, sealing him or her off from drafts.  Also, in small houses, an alcove bed was the only way for a couple to get any privacy. 

They were sometimes made with doors on the opening, either swinging out or sliding in a groove.  That is a project that you can easily figure out if you are a good carpenter, but for the occasional carpenter, I am going to advocate a pair of curtains to cover the opening.  Heavy homespun, overshot coverlets cut into curtains(damaged antiques are not unusual.  PLEASE DO NOT TELL ANYONE THAT I ADVOCATED CUTTING UP A GOOD ANTIQUE COVERLET FOR CURTAINS.)   I have actually done that, but in all cases, they were heavily damaged coverlets, that would not see a useful life unless they were cut this way.  Also, do not cut up a coverlet that has a date on it, or was made by a family member in the 19th century or by a famous person.  What a crime.  I usually find Linsey-Woolsy coverlets with holes or rips in them, made by some anonymous weaver, and cut those for curtains, pillows or upholstery.  I gave one to my sister a few years ago that was black in one direction, and Taupe in the other.  This was pleasing in my Italian color sense, but a little unusual for the home decorator.

 

In our little cottage project, I would omit the back wall window if I was going to do this project.   On the other hand, some European beds do have windows in them...very charming, but practical...I think not except in a warm climate. You do not want to make a bed to banish drafts, then put a window in the wall.  Even the best window is going to be colder than an insulated wall.

So, we will assume that this wall has been insulated already, and is ready to be sheathed in drywall, real wood paneling as posted earlier, etc..

Cut six 2x4s 49 1/2 inches long.  Have 8/ 2x4x 8s ready for this first stage.  On the floor, you will construct two walls just as you did with the side walls of the building.  The studs will be 16 inches on center.  Refer to the drawing. 

 

 

Front framing for the bed...not to scale.

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 Side wall of bed framing, not to scale.

 

 

A few sketched suggestions, see also photo above.



 



The walls will be erected at a 90 degree angle to the wall studs,(use a framing square to confirm before nailing permanently.) overlapping the third studs on both sides of the center point of the wall by about a quarter of an inch,  In other words, they should start about 41 1/4 inches from the center point in both directions.  Nail the bottom plate to the floor the top plate to the rafters, and diagonally through the first stud into the wall stud just catching the corner.

Frame the front wall of the bed as shown in the diagram.   Vary the measurements as wanted to fit your design.   

Nail the front frame to the sides you just installed.  Inside the little room you have built, you will measure and sheath the back wall with 1/2 inch birch veneer plywood.   You will be able to cover gaps at top and bottom with scraps as you will want to do nice moldings inside for the crown, as well as astragal or a similar molding vertically to simulate boards.  Alternatively, you may use the paneling I posted elsewhere for all surfaces.

Next, do the side walls and inside front walls.  Next do the ceiling in wood, installing electricity and leaving the wire hanging.  Drill and cut out the wall openings for outlets or sconces inside as well.  Do not use candles etc. inside as you could become trapped inside in a fire, especially if you install sliding doors. 

Install 2x4 cleats horizontally all the way around the inside of the bed, nailing or screwing to the studs as well as the plywood wall covering,  3/4 of an inch below the level of the horizontal threshold of the opening. 

Drop in a piece of 3/4 inch plywood to sit on the cleat.  Put a couple of finger holes in the plywood in case you ever need to lift the piece out of the floor of the bed.  A twin bed may not need it, but a larger bed may benefit from cross joists on joist hangers at the same level as the cleats.

Install your chosen wall covering on the outside of the bed superstructure.  I would use a nice wood again like the paneling posted here under space saving partition walls.  Line the inside edge of the opening to the bed with 4 1/2 inch wide hardwood board top and sides.  The bottom or threshold should have a thin molding instead to facilitate sliding in.  Install moldings on the inside of the opening, top and sides.  Make a picture frame on the outside of the opening, leaving the top with a wide decorative cornice hanging down from the top as in the sketched suggestions to hide the drapery hardware. 

Carve or rout decorative edges on the frame, apply second or even third layers to build up the decorations as you like it...This is the only decoration in the room, so you might as well do something nice. 

Cover all the inside seams and corners with quarter round or other molding.  There should be room enough for narrow bookshelves etc. inside. 

Finish as you like, and drop the mattress into the floor. 

Do not build with aromatic woods as it might be overpowering in an enclosed space. 

If you like, you may access the void under the bed through the bed floor, or put doors on the face of the bottom to access the space.  Keep the surface plain so as not to compete with the moldings around the entrance.  

There will be a little excess room at the foot of the mattress or if you have a slight variation in the size of the mattress.  In that case, just build a skinny box with a lid to fill the space so the mattress does not slide around, and to give a bit of extra storage.

 

You could do four of these against a wall with kids beds two over two.  Do regular sized multiple beds in a slightly larger house, do four full sized or twin sized beds against a wall, if you have as little as 13 feet of wall space 

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Design sketch of a Settle Bed

 

 

 

  

See cupboard beds in  "Les Miserables"  the 1952 version with Michael Rennie.  Also take a look at the bed Huw Morgan recovers in, in "How Green Was My Valley".  Huw was played by Roddy McDowall