We have shown a lot of transformer beds on TreeHugger, including others that rise into the ceiling. The idea is so sensible; a bed takes up a lot of space, why not have it go away when you don’t need it? Murphy beds that fold up are problematic; you have to make the bed and often strap the mattress. You have to lift it up. That’s work; if you want a bed to hideaway for your pied-a-terre in the Marais or Hyde Park, you have people to lift. The Liftbed solves the problem; you don’t have to make the bed, or tell your new darling to hide in the closet, you just press a button and the whole thing rises up into the ceiling.
The bed cantilevers off two columns at the head of the bed; the mechanism is hidden inside. There must be a lot of steel in there; the bed is rated for a metric tonne of load (2200 pounds). On a cantilever that long, that is a lot of moment; imagine what it would take to lift with thirteen people sitting on it.
I really think that this design is very clever, the way the bed is built around a sofa that then acts as a headboard for the bed.
In Europe people generally live in smaller homes than in North America, and they are a lot more expensive. People are willing to pay for transformer beds because they get more use out of the square feet they have, and there is a market for a bed that probably costs more than an extra room in America. There are no online references to the cost of this bed, but I have requested information and will update post when it is received. But it will be very expensive, judging by the engineering and what they say on the British brochure:
Definitely a hideaway bed for the 1%.
