Hasta La Ideas

I’m Jeri Dansky, and I’ve been a professional organizer since November 2004. I help people whose clutter is driving them crazy—and I help the mostly organized do even better. I work with clients to de-clutter and organize their offices, closets, garages, entryways, kitchens and more. I’ve been blogging since 2006, often focusing on interesting products that address various organizing challenges. When other organizers are looking for products to help their clients—products that go beyond the basics of plastic bins and such—I’m often the person they ask for help. So while I’m not a designer myself, I’ve been interested in design (especially as it relates to organizing) for many years, and I’m very appreciative of the great work I often see.

In this new column for Core77, I’ll be using my experience to show you cool, inspirational stuff on the storage/organization front each week.

If you’re designing a bed for urban customers—or anyone with a small home—every bit of extra storage helps. So instead of wasting the space under the bed (or leaving customers to find boxes or baskets that fit underneath), you may want to incorporate under-bed storage into your design. There are two basic ways such storage can be done: with drawers or shelves along the base, or with a platform that lifts up to provide storage underneath.

Beds with drawers

My house was built in the 1960s, which mean the bedrooms are small, and a queen- or king-sized bed takes up most of the floorspace. So I’m glad my bed has a base with built-in drawers, but I’m delighted to see designers creating much nicer products than what I’ve got.

The lovely bed shown above—part of the LAX Series from MASHstudios—has something you seldom see: wheels on the drawers. It has four of these rolling drawers on each side.

I spoke to the brand manager at MASHstudios about this design, and learned that most people ask about those wheels, because it’s such an unusual approach; most storage beds use normal drawer slides, with the associated hardware. But this was an aesthetic choice the company made; for the LAX Series, it specifically tries to use “as little hardware as possible” and to avoid things like visible mounted tracks. The wheels are made of polyurethane (or something similar), and shouldn’t damage most floors; the company has not heard of any such damage problems.

Some people may prefer to have fewer but larger drawers. This Knickerbocker bed from Wonk can be ordered with one or two drawers on each side; if you go with one drawer, it can be either the size shown above, or larger. Providing that level of customization is a nice touch, so customers can get the storage that works best for them.

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