Binbags, modules, futons. Unusual country furniture made of fabric

Japan is a country with unusual traditions, often different from the customs of European countries. However, every tradition in the Land of the Rising Sun is justified by some reason for its appearance. According to one version, the custom of sleeping not on the bed, but on the floor is explained by the fact that the Japanese, due to the overpopulation of the country, often do not have the opportunity to live in houses, apartments with a large area. In many residential areas, sometimes there is not even room for a bed. And the Japanese can only dream of double furniture. So you have to use mattresses for sleeping on the floor, which, after dreams, are easily removed to the place allotted for them.

There are other explanations for the tradition of sleeping on the floor. For a long time, Japan was an isolated country with no contacts with Asian and European states. Therefore, in the development of the samurai country there are distinctive, unique features that are unlike the norms of other countries. For example, sleeping on the floor at night. In addition, the hot Japanese climate forced the inhabitants of the state to look for a cool place to sleep at night, which most often was the floor.

The Japanese are a people who care about their health. Sleep on a hard, flat surface - prevention of diseases of the spine and back. But this does not mean that the people of Japan sleep on the bare floor. For this purpose, they weave thick mats of rice straw, called tatami. Such night sleep devices are ideally breathable, allowing the skin to breathe and not sweat. The progenitor of tatami in Japan was hard and uncomfortable wicker mats that lay right on the floor. Later, carpets were woven to soften sleep - mattresses 5 cm high. They were also located on the bare floor.

Currently, tatami mats are used as floor coverings in Japanese homes. To make them, you need to know the clear rules of weaving regarding the size of the tatami and their location on the floor.

Traditional tatami mats come in the following sizes: 90x180 cm, 90x90 cm, etc. In some houses, a futon mattress was used over wicker tatami mats, the filler of which was cotton or wool. However, due to the high cost of a bed, a floor mattress was considered a luxury and was only available to wealthy Japanese. Now the futon can be seen in almost every Japanese family.

For convenience, practicality, saving living space, the futon is put away in the closet after sleep, and the tatami is used as a place for a tea or dinner ceremony. It is also allowed to perform normal daily work on the tatami mat. In general, modern Japan is characterized by minimalism with maximum benefit from a small living area. Almost every Japanese home has a surface covered with tatami, which, by the way, differs from the usual floor in a very high cost.

Orthopedic mattress - an alternative to tatami and futon mattresses

A full sleep that preserves health, restores strength, brings a good mood for the next day, increases efficiency, depends, as you know, on a comfortable, high-quality mattress. In Russia, they do not weave tatami and do not use futon. Orthopedic mattresses made from the highest quality materials are considered an ideal alternative to an unusual Japanese sleeping device in our country. Such a mattress can be safely used without a bed and placed directly on the floor.

The use of a mattress without a bed is typical for interior design of a room in a minimalist style. This is a very trendy, modern bedroom design trend that uses a minimal set of furniture to maximize room space.

Most often, this design is chosen for themselves by young creative people who prefer comfort, functionality and practicality, rather than the beautiful appearance of their bedroom. Buying not a bed, but a mattress on the floor, you can save money, while enjoying a luxurious sleeping place. However, only a branded, comfortable, not cheap mattress can be a replacement for a real bed.

Advantages and disadvantages of a mattress instead of a bed

The use of a mattress on the floor instead of a bed is typical of the Japanese style. Although modern beds are produced in Japan, there is little demand for them for the inhabitants of this country themselves. Since ancient times, the Japanese have followed folk traditions and wisdom, preferring to spend a night's sleep on the floor, rather than on a high bed. But do not despair when visiting the country as a tourist. In all Japanese hotels, great attention is paid to the comfort and convenience of guests, so a double bed in a hotel in Japan is a common thing.

However, do not be surprised that you will be offered a choice of a sleeping room in which there is no usual bed, but instead there is only a mattress. The choice in any case will be yours.

But it is worth remembering that many Europeans, having visited Japan and having experienced a night's sleep on the floor, upon returning home, acquire a special mattress for their own rest.

Mattress benefits include:

1. height. Often high beds are fraught with the fact that when falling from them there is a chance of hurting and hitting hard. This is especially true for young children. With the use of a mattress, this problem disappears, because when falling from a small height, the impact force on the floor is minimal.
2. ease of operation. The absence of a bed does not require the rules for its operation, repair.
3. versatility. A mattress is not only the perfect place for a night's sleep, but also a great daytime trampoline for kids to use.
4. matching any style in the interior. Most contemporary styles don't lose their sophistication when using a mattress instead of a bed.
5. novelty, freedom, youth, carelessness. Many people do not accept the positive aspects of sleeping on the floor, preferring plush beds to set up in the bedroom. Yet, if you plunge into the past, you can see that our ancestors often rested on the ground at night, putting only an armful of hay for softness. Only in rich houses were wide high beds used, which later became fashionable. Currently, the prevailing habits, prejudices prevent many people from refusing to bed. Only carefree, young, energetic, free individuals can afford to sleep on the floor, regardless of the norms accepted in society.
6. comfort and convenience during your stay. A mattress instead of a bed is ideal for those people who suffer from back and spine pain. After all, a hard, flat surface gives a feeling of calm, comfort, good rest to your body during the night.

The only drawback is that the low height of the mattress in the absence of normal heating, the presence of strong drafts in the apartment can cause colds for the person who sleeps on it.

A person will feel uncomfortable when it blows cold from everywhere. Therefore, when choosing a mattress, pay special attention to its height in order to protect yourself from future troubles associated with the lack of a normal temperature in the bedroom.

Instead of a conclusion

Good, uninterrupted sleep is of great importance for a person's physical and mental health. Comfort, convenience during rest are inextricably linked with the use of a high-quality orthopedic mattress, which should be moderately hard, high, made of high-quality materials. The use of this sleep aid is justified by the large number of advantages available over the traditional nightly rest on the bed.

Mattress-shaped pillows can be used to make an armchair or a whole sofa by connecting them together. Such designs are multivariate: the shape and dimensions depend on the needs and can change, it is enough to attach or remove pillows. And the easily replaceable cover allows you to play with the colors of the furniture, making your sofa out of multi-colored “cubes”. And if the coloring is tired, just change the case.

Rectangular seat cushions are complemented by cushions or just small sofa cushions. And the elements not used in the design of the sofa will become poufs. By the way, if you put a solid table top (for example, a wooden shield or thick glass) on such a pouffe cushion, you will get another piece of furniture - a coffee table.

Cushion with roller for comfortable sitting. Photo from smartballs.ru

A frameless sofa can also be used as a sleeping place: it is enough to “spread out” specially designed pillows for this. The absence of heavy mechanisms will allow even a child to cope with this task.

Sleeper sofa. Photo from smartballs.ru

Soft designs are a good option for kids. There are models created specifically for children's rooms: from the modules you can assemble not only a piece of furniture, but also build a house for games.

Separate elements in such sofas and armchairs are interconnected using conventional textile zippers or Velcro. Therefore, such a design can be made independently, because modern fillers for upholstered furniture are easy to find on sale.

bean bag

Perhaps the most popular type of furniture without a frame is a bean bag or binbag. The name comes from the English words bean and bag, which translates to "bag of beans". They say that the idea to create such a chair by designer Roger Dean was prompted by a farmer who sat down to rest on a bag of beans.

Modern binbags are filled, of course, not with beans, but with polystyrene balls. Due to its design, the bean bag chair is comfortable to sit in any position: it takes the shape of the human body.

Polyurethane foam sofas

Frameless furniture also includes polyurethane foam products. Such sofas and armchairs are not too soft, but the material allows you to do without a rigid support and create any shape.

Sofas and armchairs made of molded polyurethane foam. Designed by Gaetano Pesce, UP 2000 SERIES collection. Photo from gaetanopesce.com

If a modular sofa is not very difficult to make on your own, then sofas and chairs made of molded polyurethane foam require factory conditions. The liquid material is poured into a mold where it solidifies under pressure through a chemical reaction.

Futons

For a European home, furniture in the form of mattresses is a fairly modern solution. But for a Japanese home, a futon mattress is a common piece of furniture.

In a traditional Japanese home, they sleep on a tatami-covered floor, on a mattress stuffed with cotton wool - a futon. And during the day, bedding is folded and put away in the closet.

In the European version, the futon has been somewhat modernized. There are futon sofas. True, this is not entirely frameless furniture. The futon mattress is not placed directly on the floor, but on a low wooden bench, which, with the help of a simple mechanism, can be turned into an armchair or sofa, depending on the width of the mattress.

A slightly modified semicircular futon mattress can be converted into an armchair without any frame. For this, there are Velcro straps on the back side.

Ouster armchair in futon. Photo from gliver.ru

In Japanese traditions, there is another very convenient device - kotatsu. This is a low table in which the frame and top are separated from each other. The frame is covered with a futon or thick blanket, and a countertop is laid on top.

It turns out a table and a heater at the same time. The modern version of the kotatsu is equipped with an electric stove located under the table top on the frame.

Previously, the electric heater was replaced by a brazier with coals in the floor niche. The brazier was used for cooking, then a kotatsu was placed on top and covered with a futon, on top of which a countertop was laid.

Japanese houses are not very insulated, so this design was used as a heating pad: the whole family sat around the table on seat cushions, covering their legs with a futon. The brazier provided heat, which was retained by the kotatsu blanket.

That's where the expression "warm company" came from! Photo from the site cipusa.org

Such a table with a blanket in Japan can be found not only in private homes, but also in trains, restaurants, stadiums and other public places. Of course, it is unusual for us to dine under a blanket, but for a country house, for example, for gatherings in a grill house, kotatsu is very suitable.

Frameless upholstered furniture is diverse, everyone will find an option to their liking. Comfortable and informal, bright and unconventional - such furniture is simply created for giving and country rest.

We bring to the attention of home craftsmen an original design - a do-it-yourself sofa bed, adapted to the popular Japanese futon mattress. On these thin mats stuffed with dry algae, the people of the Far East have been sleeping for 20 centuries.

The composition of the filler of modern futons has changed, but remains of high quality. Now they are stuffed with natural latex, cotton, coconut coir or thermal fiber. But on the floor, like the Japanese, we are not accustomed to sleeping, even on futons. In this case, a do-it-yourself folding sofa assembled from pine furniture panels will help us out.

Preparation for work

The model presented here has a simple design. The frames of the main modules, seats and backrests are assembled in a similar way: 2 side walls are connected in front and behind with two boards. The base for the mattress, consisting of transverse slats, is attached to the longitudinal parts. Noteworthy is the functionality of the folding legs. When folded, they steadily support the back, when unfolding the sofa, they serve as a reliable support for the bed.

Sofa bed detail

Blanks from a furniture board:

• Sidewalls of the seat frame with dimensions 38x350x830 mm - 2 pcs.
• Longitudinal boards of the seat frame 38x130x2000 mm - 2 pcs.
• Longitudinal boards of the back frame 38x90x2080 - 2 pcs.
• Bars to reinforce the back frame 38x55x730 mm - 2 pcs.

The two sides of the backrest are made of 28 mm thick furniture board. Their final dimensions are 28x130x1050 mm.

Planed lumber blanks:

1. Support bars of the seat frame 30x30x2000 mm - 2 pcs.
2. Support bars of the back frame 30x30x2080 mm - 2 pcs.
3. Rails for folding legs 20x50x640 mm - 2 pcs.
4. Reiki for folding legs 20x50x285 mm - 2 pcs.
5. Pads for attaching legs 20x50x83 mm - 2 pcs.
6. Laths for the back grille 14x30x655 mm - 28 pcs.
7. Laths for the seat grille 14x30x609 mm - 28 pcs.
8. Round bar with a diameter of 22 mm, length 1960 mm.

Of the consumables you will need:

• Bolts M8x80 - 4 pcs., M8x70 - 2 pcs.
• Self-locking nuts M8 - 6 pcs.
• Washers 25x8.5x1 mm - 3 pcs.
• Screws 6x80 mm - 2 pcs., Plus 6 washers for them.
• Wooden dowels with a diameter of 8 mm - 16 pcs.
• Sets of furniture ties - 8 pcs. The kit includes M5x80 mm screws (hexagon socket head), washers and bushings ∅10x15 mm, M5 internal thread.
• Various screws.
• Synthetic belt 25 mm wide, 8 m long.
• Sandpaper.
• Carpenter's glue, furniture varnish.

To work, you will need the following tools:

1. Table saw.
2. Electric jigsaw.
3. Drill and drills.
4. Screwdriver.

The process of making a sofa bed

Starting our task of how to make a folding sofa, we first cut out all the necessary blanks with a circular saw. We round all the corners with a jigsaw, and smooth the edges with fine-grained sandpaper. Before assembly, all blanks are covered with acrylic varnish and dried.

The sides of the seat are connected by longitudinal boards. Fasteners are 2 dowels on glue and one furniture screed. This gives the structure the necessary rigidity.

The back is assembled in the same way. Here it is necessary to measure with maximum accuracy the location of the holes for the axle bolts to rotate the back and legs of the sofa (in the drawing they are indicated by crosses). Articulations are made with bolts and hex self-locking nuts. To reduce the friction of the back and side walls, we put washers 25x8.5x1 mm under the nuts.

Using screws and glue, bars with a section of 30x30 mm are attached to the longitudinal boards of the back and seat for laying the slatted base. Considering the thickness of the mattress (120 mm), we attach the longitudinal boards and the seat grill 45 mm below the upper level of the sidewalls. Then the height of the seat from the floor will be 425 mm. The question of how to make a sofa bed optimal for sitting has been resolved.

We insert bushings with internal thread taken from furniture sets into the holes of the longitudinal boards ∅10mm. We screw M5x80 screws into them with a head having an internal hexagon. We tighten them with a socket wrench.

We connect the swivel joints of the legs on both sides using 80 mm screws, a bar ∅22 mm and three washers.

We fasten the straps with a belt tape. To do this, we press a long piece of board or bar with clamps to the workbench, which will serve as an emphasis. Measuring pads can be made from the remnants of chipboard.

We connect the seat and back frames with bolts. To give strength on both inner sides of the sidewalls of the back, we glue the bars and press them with clamps until completely dry.

We fasten the cross rails to the screws, screwing one at a time on the left and right. Supports in the raised state provide additional support to the back of the structure.

Let's try to push our sofa. The backrest needs to be slightly forward and pull the round beam connecting the legs towards you. The result is a double bed with dimensions of 1600x2000 mm.

The futon mattress with natural filling is well ventilated through the slatted structure.

The back and seat after assembling the sofa seem a little disproportionate. However, having laid a futon 12 cm thick on the gratings, we will fully appreciate the convenience of the design. In order for the mattress to hold well on the seat, it must be tied with fabric ribbons to the lower longitudinal part of the backrest.

As a result, we got a folding sofa of an unusual shape, ideally suited for a Japanese futon. A new piece of furniture will give the interior an oriental flavor and will become a favorite place for the family to relax.

In the rubric:

Like a nest made by a caring bird, the Nest Chair futon invites you into its soft and cozy embrace. This original piece of furniture is conceived as a hybrid between an armchair and a mattress-bed for guests, so in the blink of an eye a comfortable seat turns into an equally comfortable bed.

Compactness and versatility make this chair an ideal piece of furniture for a small city apartment or a small country house where guests often visit. And bright colors and modern design diversify the interior, filling it with positive and joy.

Designed by Danish industrial designer Anders Backe, the chair combines the characteristics of two cultures: the Japanese design tradition with the Western preference for functionality and comfort. When unfolded, the chair resembles a futon - a traditional Japanese bedding that is spread out at night for sleep and cleaned in the morning in a closet. Yes, only in this case you can not clean the closet! It is better to seat all guests in cozy chairs and drink delicious tea!

The cover for the chair is made of natural material, and the high-quality synthetic filler holds its shape well, does not roll or crumple. As a mattress for a night's rest, a futon can be used, but not on an ongoing basis, but for several days. Also chairs can be used outdoors, in the garden or in the country.

Most of the pillows presented here are quite realistic to do with your own hands, just a little diligence is enough.

A DIY chair can be any shape you like...

The straight edge of the mattress is divided into three parts. a zipper is sewn into the seam of two identical extreme parts, with the help of which the mattress turns into a chair.

BAG CHAIR

All the materials needed to make a chair can be easily bought at sewing stores. And the filler is sold by firms that are engaged in the production of thermal insulation materials.

When purchasing Styrofoam, keep in mind that balls that are too small will make your chair heavy, and too large will not be evenly distributed over the chair.

The simplest version of the chair is a large pillow or pouffe.

1. According to the previously prepared paper patterns, cut the material (for example, according to the diagram as in the figure, you can also come up with something in the form of an ordinary square or oval) according to the dimensions you need, be sure to add 1.5 cm on each side for an allowance.

2. Chop off all the details from the wrong side with needles and, leaving about 30 cm for inserting a zipper, sweep everything with a hand seam. Then sew the zipper in the same way. Sew all parts on a typewriter and then remove temporary seams.

3. Overlock all seams or apply a second line, having previously folded the allowance.

4. Turn out the entire product. Iron or steam, if necessary.

5. Fill the resulting case with polystyrene foam, using a plastic bottle with a pre-cut neck. To prevent the foam balls from crumbling, you need to glue the bottle with tape to the hole in the chair cover.

6. Sew a slightly larger outer cover according to the principle of the inner one. Stroke, steam. Put on the finished chair.

Easily, quickly and simply, you got an interesting and unusual bean bag chair. If you used artificial leather for the outer case, install a couple of small eyelets.

They will ensure the exit of air from the gap between the inner and outer covers. To ensure that the chair is always lush and never loses its charming and unusual look, duplicate the outer cover with a layer of padding polyester. And in order for your bean bag chair to serve you for a long time and always please the eye, do not place it near a heat source and do not completely place it in water.

Folding chair

sun lounger - bed

Put several identical pillows in one pillowcase, divided into parts by seams

And you will get a children's mattress made of pillows. Velcro can be added to opposite edges

This version of the bed, which turns into two types of chairs, was invented by professional designers.

If you look closely, you can understand how to turn a bed into each of the chairs using strong strings.

Modular pillows, which are a set of regular pillows with locks on the sides. If desired, they are fastened to each other, allowing you to collect something more - for example, a mattress or a small easy chair

To sew such a module, you will need several identical square pillows, the same number of identical pillowcases of the same size and several identical zippers.

Jul 24, 2016 Galinka