Past and Present of Transforming Furniture
Our good friends over at Resource Furniture put together this short video showing transforming furniture’s past and present. The vintage footage illustrates this type of furniture is hardly a new idea. People have been designing furniture to maximize the use of space for ages.
In fact, what’s new is NOT maximizing space. Consider that the average new American home in 1950 was 983 sq ft., and the average household had 3.37 people. According the US Census Bureau, those numbers in 2010 were 2,169 sq ft and 2.59 people. That works out to 293 and 837 sq ft/person respectively–almost 3 times as much space per person! Much of this extra square footage, we suspect, is consumed by seldom-used spaces like dining rooms, guest rooms and foyers. What if, by using transforming furniture, we make our rooms do double or triple duty? Combine dining rooms with guest rooms. Make living rooms into bedrooms. Just get rid of the foyer (the parsley sprig of architecture). How much space would we need then?
What if we started living and maximizing smaller living spaces again? They’re cheaper, greener and–for all but a few worst-case-scenarios–provide all the space we need. What ways would you do it–furniture, housewares, etc.? What ways are you doing it? Let us know what you think.