How convertible furniture companies are preparing for post-pandemic life
The horrors of the traditional wall bed are clear to anyone who’s ever pulled one down. “Every Murphy bed out there, the design is kind of stuck in the 1970s, right?” says Ravi Patel, the co-founder of Oclo Designs and what he’s calling the world’s first luxury Murphy bed. Then there’s the cheap materials, the lack of box spring or midline support, the bizarrely outsize price point, plus delivery and installation (typically by professional contractors, lest you snap your finger in the plywood or strain your back unloading the base). And of course, the cartoon-comical lift mechanism that’s not unlike the torsional spring of a mousetrap. As Oclo co-founder Karan Desai notes: “Most are gas-piston mechanisms that we use in the hood of our car, which are pressurized and not very durable. So if it blows off, it can tear apart the whole piece.”