Small Home Gazette, Fall 2019
Creative Solutions: Uses for Knee Wall Spaces, Part 2
In the Summer 2019 issue of this newsletter, we ran a piece on creative storage spaces tucked into the knee walls of bungalow upper-level expansions. In response, two of the Bungalow Club’s Facebook followers shared how they tucked full-size beds into their knee wall spaces.
Bed Nooks
With the help of a local carpenter, Jennifer and her husband converted knee wall space in their home in the Audubon Park neighborhood of Minneapolis into two cozy, full-size (double) bed nooks for sons Jack, 8, and Will, 12. Though the space is snug, the boys quickly learned to avoid hitting their heads when they sit up. Even the boys’ dad, at 6 feet 1 inch tall, can lie comfortably in the beds.
Built into walls on each side of the dormer, the beds have a niche at their head that hold books and other items, with a reading lamp installed above. The bed frames house two side-by-side drawers for additional storage. The bed area is 92 inches by 54 inches surrounded by a shallow ledge shelf around the mattresses, which rest on slats.
The bed area is two steps lower (see steps at bottom right of photo) than the rest of the room. The lower ceiling in the porch below allowed extra height in the dormer for the bed niches.
The nook openings are 73 inches wide by 38 inches high, and the top of the opening is 58 inches from the floor. The bed area of the boys’ room is over the porch, where the ceiling is about 18 inches lower than inside the house. The rafters were extended in depth (from a two-by-four to a two-by-eight) to accommodate additional insulation of 2-inch rigid foam and a vapor barrier below the drywall.
Pull-Out Bed
Now you see it, now you don’t. Robert’s bed disappears into the eaves—rolling on casters.
Another Facebook submission was from Robert, who shared that he and his wife had a “bed garage” built into the upper level bedroom of their 2007 custom-built bungalow in Northfield.
The full length of the bed can be pushed back into the deep eave space. The full-size bed frame is on high quality casters for easy rolling.
During the day, the room has plenty of open space for work or play. Low pocket doors in the knee walls hide the bed when it is stowed and then slide apart when it is time for it to emerge.
Other Stow-Away Beds
If you do not have usable knee wall space but still need extra bed space, consider a vintage creative solution: Murphy beds. They fold up into a wall or closet; were very popular during the bungalow era; and are still widely available.
For more information on Murphy beds (as well as sofa beds), including where to find them locally, check out the article that ran in a previous edition of this newsletter. See “Bungalow Hide-a-Bed” in the Summer 2010 issue.
For additional inspirational images of knee wall and alcove beds, visit this Pinterest page, “Knee Wall Beds.”
Other Examples?
If you know of other creative solutions to make bungalows more livable, send them to us at mail@bungalowclub.net. Whether they save space; provide modern convenience with an historically-appropriate appearance; or simply make the best of a difficult situation, we would love to share them in the Small Home Gazette.
