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Comment by niftich | Hacker News Reader

Beds take up a lot of floor area, but lifting them off the floor with expensive machinery you must install in your ceiling is hardly a compelling solution.

It's the prevalence of innerspring mattresses that's responsible for contemporary bedding being unwieldy. An innerspring mattress is constructed to predetermined form factor, and is resistant to folding or rolling or other mechanical ways of conserving space. Getting it out of the way means manipulating the entire unit as one, which absent a pulley system installed in your ceiling typically means rotating it onto a weak edge, where it can barely remain upright; this can be rectified by a platform that holds that the mattress in place while it is pivoted upright into a recess in the wall, in an established, if outdated design.

If you forego monolithic innerspring mattresses, you have vastly more options in moving bedding when it's not needed.

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What do you propose? Foam-based mattresses are becoming more and more prevalent. While they can be folded more easily (and without damage) when compared to innerspring mattresses, I can't imagine why you'd want to do that on a regular basis.

The only real alternatives I can think of are camping-oriented bed-rolls and hammocks. While they can be comfortable, they're clearly compromises: given the option, long term, most would choose a bed.

Humans lay flat to sleep. It's ideal to have a dedicated sleeping space. Hence, beds and bed rooms.

Make sure you're not trying to use foldable beds to solve problems of being unwilling to build your buildings higher to provide sufficient space for bedrooms, or if you're already looking at a high-rise area, sufficiently speedy public transport to allow people to come in from areas that have the space.

"you must install in your ceiling is hardly a compelling solution." - why? we have "expensive" machinery to open our garage doors. Why specifically do you think it is not a compelling solution?

I personally think this is a great idea as ceilings are useless for the most part and that space can be used for something else - like storing the entire bed.

> ceilings are useless for the most part

I would say they are underutilized. Ceilings are certainly useful for preventing rain from falling on our heads ;)

Those are roofs. Ceilings are basically just for looks.

And for maintaining a proper vapor barrier and insulation - two things rather critical to asset value and livability respectively, in most climates.

You can also put insulation on top of them to make your room more temperature efficient. Also prevents the need of dusting your roof joists, since they are effectively sealed.

Ha touche. Although I would say my ceiling is just the inside part of my roof :P

I guess it depends on how your house is made.

Thanks for the brilliant correction :-)

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