Design: The 3 in 1 Cabinet

This design was made for my home.

I live in a small studio unit, so as much as possible, I would like to make use of every bit of floor space.

In any problem solving or design work that I do, I usually start with understanding the things I absolutely can not change. From there I think of the solutions around it. In this case, it was the location of my washer-dryer. The main water source made it impossible to move the washing machine elsewhere.

When my washer dryer was placed, I felt that there was so much space above it that was going to waste.

So I decided to make it the storage space for the things around it. Which was my shoes, laundry essentials, and cleaning materials.

Here is a picture before the construction.

I believe that all items that I own need a home. And storage should be exactly that.

Storage should not be:

A place where you stuff everything lying around
A place to hide things that you don't want to see
A place to hoard things that you might need later

Storage should be:

A home for an item
A division of spaces where each item has its space
An eye-candy that would excite you to use the items that you stored
An inspiration to place the item back after using
A space that shows you exactly what you have in a glance
A pleasant surprise that tells you (and everyone else) that you got this "smart living" game

So the plan was to create a suspended cabinet that would have two separate compartments.

It would separately store my shoes in one compartment and my laundry essentials and cleaning tools in the other.

And this is the actual awesome true-to-life sketch I came up with on my phone.

A cabinet in front with a pull out shoe rack on the side.

After a while I felt embarrassed with what I did and made something like this.

I sent this 3D drawing to Polygon, the architects I collaborated with, since I had to make proper measurements and adjustments and made sure that this design was possible. I also made sure the cabinet won't just collapse and the pull-out shoe compartment would not fully detach and be a threat to my life. I also made sure that it is not a threat to Haru, my cat.

You gotta love physics for making stuff like this possible. Although I still have a love-hate relationship with understanding it.

If you’re curious about the measurements, here it is! It’s the balance of the measurements and weight that made this possible! Good job science!

So I got the cabinet fabricated, and rest I did it myself.

By the way, I enjoy doing these things, so I tend to do the details myself. But if you want to do something similar, you can make others do everything for you. Reality is, as long as you know what the end product would be, you can exactly determine how much you want to be involved.

“I woke up like this.” When I get excited about something, it’s what I do first thing in the morning.

The only electrical stuff for this was a multicolored cove light to light my washing machine that doubles as a mood light at night. And an electric outlet inside the cabinet since I knew I was going to place my vacuum cleaner in it. I attached a smart breaker and programmed it so that my vacuum only charges 4 hours each night. No more overcharging and worrying about electrical fluctuations!

Here is the outcome! Clean lines, clean lines, clean lines! You can click the pictures to zoom it in and see the details!