• John Wilson
• February 22,2023

There’s a problem frequently encountered by designers of very small houses, which is that beds are very nice to have while sleeping, but, even when you’re not sleeping, they take up a lot of space. Our caveman ancestors, presumably, solved this problem by having beds that rolled up when not in use: more recently, designers of so-called “tiny houses” have gotten around this by lofting beds up high, with living space below. Which, unless you love the idea of fumbling for a ladder when you need to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, isn’t an ideal solution. So I was very excited to see this tiny house design by Ana White , which comes up with a new—and particularly innovative—solution to the problem.

Instead of climbing up into your bed at the end of the night—wouldn’t it be easier if your bed came to you? That’s the idea behind the bed raising system that Ana developed, where a queen-sized bed slides up and down on rails, and can be raised or lowered at the push of a button with a garage storage lift system.

During the day, the bed sits at the very highest setting, and is supported by pins drilled into the wall. This leaves plenty of space below for lounging and watching TV. At night, the bed can be lowered to sit just above the sectional sofa. The storage cubes help to give you a boost to hop into bed. If there are overnight guests, the sectional sofa can be re-arranged to make an additional bed, and the movable bed can be placed on an intermediate setting, high enough to allow guests plenty of head room but low enough to access via the storage cubes and the console on the right. This way, there’s no need for a ladder, which would take up extra space.

The rest of the little house (which is a mere 8.5 feet long and 24 feet wide) has plenty of other innovative solutions. Sliding doors on the storage console flip up to form a table, or two separate desks. Pull-out drawers offer storage under the kitchen platform, and in the bathroom there’s a particularly unusual closet solution: a sliding cubby that fits into the shower, and slides into the space over the toilet when the shower is in use. Storing clothes in the shower may seem a bit unusual, but you’ve got to admit it’s a space that doesn’t often get used.

All this means that there’s a lot going on in this little house, but it still feels quite open and spacious, with a wide open area in the middle for crafts or yoga or pillow fights or whatever your heart desires. It’s just further proof that, with a little ingenuity, even a little house can live large.

You can see more photos of the tiny house, and even a video, at Ana White . For a full description of how Ana created the bed raising system, check out this post .