JAPANESE MOTIF ENTERTAINMENT CENTERS
16 July 2008
"Just a Step Away"
For the first half of our marriage my wife and I rented, and the places I most remember are two town houses, one in Orange County, the other in San Diego. Both of them were two-story residences, and both made clever use of the under-stairs area. One pulled the staircase to the front of the town house, then utilized the space under the stairs for a private laundry room, which was accessed through a door near the other end of the downstairs. The other pushed the staircase to the rear and split it into two flights with a landing, under which they put a storage space. I remember thinking how cutting edge I thought both of those concepts were. Actually, they were several centuries behind the Japanese,
a fact I discovered when I visited the website of Greentea Design.
I first saw a Step Cabinet (Kaidan Dansu in Japanese) some years ago when I was taking woodworking classes at Palomar College. One of my fellow students made a Step Cabinet which impressed me because of the workmanship he employed, but I found myself wondering what serious use could be made of such a cabinet. A chest of drawers, of course, would have utilized all the space, whereas the step cabinet seemed to be giving up half the available storage space for no discernable reason that I could fathom. Now that I’ve a chance to do some reading online, I’m embarrassed at my lack of knowledge. As it turns out, the Step Cabinet was, in fact, steps which were used during the Edo Period (1615-1867) by homeowners who used them to access loft spaces. And just as the designers of my rented town home did centuries later, those ancient Japanese decided to utilize the space under the stairs, the difference being, of course, that they did it first, and did it better.
All of these chests consist of sliding doors and drawers to access different-sized storage spaces, but as the concept evolved, they used them to fool the tax man who assessed property taxes according to the livable floor space. The later versions of this concept were hinged to fold the top half onto the lower, making it look like a square box, and they would then tell the tax man that there was no access to the storage loft. Well, the tax man eventually got smarter than that, b
ut no one seems to have come up with a smarter version of the Step Cabinet until Greentea Design began wrestling with it.
In their hands, this fairly ancient concept has jumped right into the Twentieth Century, and not just to store the paraphernalia we all seem to have. Designed correctly, it turns out to be a wonderful storage place for a TV, especially one used in the bedroom. I mean, lots of people like to watch TV in bed, but not everyone wants to admit it. Well, if you ever wanted a glorious way of hiding the TV, this product just has to be the answer.
They also have a line of TV cabinets (what I would think of as small enter
tainment centers) and TV stands, both of which bring an unbelievable touch of elegance to the problem of doing something with the TV when it is not in use. Everything on this page, despite what it may look like, is actually designed for TVs.
Yesterday I pushed very hard for commissioning custom cabinetwork, because I believe that, at some level, all of really do know that one size does not fit all. Women buying pantyhose certainly do! But on the other hand… well, on the other hand there is a company like Greentea Design that does what they do with unbelievable flair.
Joseph
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