Found a shot of the counterweight. In the closer picture with the cables visible, you can just make out that they’re all routed along the wall in the same direction.
edit: and seeing that, it would appear that this bed is of the non-swinging variety. Though adding some harware, and probably changing the last vertical run of cable to a single/thicker strand would probably be a decent way of changing that.
I can’t tell if it’s using counterweights or motors or some other means to make hoisting the bed easier
Looks to me like the cable attaches to the foot of the bed, runs up over one pulley, to the head of the bed, over another pulley, then down to a winch housed in the bed frame. There’s a ‘pigtail’ power cord running from the bed frame to a plug in the wall, which would be for the winch power, and there’s no evidence of any counter weights - where would they go? Electric winches are pretty cheap and even a small one would have ample power for lifting a bed.
I was going to say counterweights hidden in the closets to the right – in the second photo you can just make out the blurry cables all heading to the right.
tyroney above found the actual picture. Funny that the French version has the same photo set but thought that photo boring, I guess.
In any case, a beautiful house all around.
You have to spend a half hour every morning bench-pressing the bed. You get tremendously strong and don’t require any mechanical assistance when you place it in the rafters.
From the article linked by tyroney:
For the headboard, Roberts fastened a huge slab of redwood to the wall but put it on hinges so that, when the bed is raised, the piece of wood can flip down to double as a desk.
I hadn’t noticed that in the original photos, but it’s there. That’s some excellent attention to detail and thought.
I thought the same thing at first but it’s not true. There’s a counterweight. The cable is for that box light installed under the bed.
That’s beautiful. That’s going to hinder my distaste for his character a little.
Here’s the detail from the original* article in Dwell:
“The pulley system that controls the hanging bed needed some serious hardware, including a 300-pound steel counterweight that’s hidden in a corner of Kartheiser’s closet.”
http://www.dwell.com/house-tours/article/tiny-hollywood-home-mad-mens-vincent-kartheiser
*it’s pretty un-cool that fubiz (and neatorama) freely used a whole bunch of photos and descriptions directly from the original article without so much as mentioning the source. I don’t read french, but the fubiz article certain had the appearance of an original piece, even though they clearly knew the source, since they did link to the architect’s profile on Dwell.com.
Dust Bunny Mobile - just so happens to be the name of my band.
Next on BoingBoing: Retractable bed falls from the rafters.
No reason it should if built/installed/maintained properly.
If we burst at the seams
We’ll put beds on the beams
and the rafters
The Verve Pipe, When One Became Two
comes around on the kids’ Pandora channel.
It would be easy enough, and wise, to introduce a ratchet-type fail-safe, similar to an elevator’s
Right. And in any case, under most circumstances support at 3 corners would suffice to keep it safely suspended even if the 4th cable (or any of its anchor points) fails.
C’mon bro there should be an app for that. Remote control drop down beds always impress the chicks.
Rock-a-bye baby, in the ceiling.
This would totally solve my dwarf problem.
I would be interested in a standalone version suitable for a rented apartment. Perhaps fashioning a pseudo-rafter frame out of metal would work, albeit at considerable effort.
Wasn’t this invented by Thomas jefferson?
