The C-Pod Bespoke Coat Cupboard.
Now this is a mad piece of furniture, absolutely bonkers. But at the same time it’s brilliant by design and very practical. It all started when we extended our kitchen and took up the coat cupboard space, so a £5 BnQ coat rack was put up in the entrance hall. Yeah, that didn’t work and just served to wind me up.
I missed the old coat cupboard which was now occupied by a fridge. So, what can I’d do about this, yeah, with the skills I have and the job I do it wouldn’t take me 5 minutes to knock up a small coat cupboard, it’ll be like child’s play for me. But no, I wanted to do something special, something
I’ve not come across in all the years of fitting bespoke furniture so I put my thinking cap on and come up with a concept drawing of the C-POD, but it looked more like the monolith from 2001 space odyssey, yeah it wasn’t going well. The one thing I gleamed from this was the doors had to slide apart together, I knew roughly how I wanted to do that but could not find the hardware or a sliding door system to make the doors work synchronously so I had to develop it myself.
The problem I faced was that the doors will protrude beyond the body of the unit, which is why I’ve cleverly used draw runners to achieve this and I found a synchronised table slide, used on extending dining room tables, I had to adapt it to work on doors, but it worked, perfectly. One problem solved.
But the design wasn’t working, what if I could suspend the unit, lift it of the floor, that could look good. You don’t often see furniture lifted of the floor, you could argue that’s now wasted space but it does look good and if you’ve got nice flooring it looks really good. So I attached a couple of pillars to each side and reduced the height of the unit, yeah I lost some internal space but it reminded me of the old and elegant stone pillars you get either side of an elaborate front door, a classic look. I liked it and the design was slowly taking shape.
But there were still some major issues to overcome, when you’re making something this complex and precise it needs to be strong and robust so we made it from 25mm thick board, most of our furniture is made from 25mm thick board, it’s a bit overkill but it works and aesthetically looks great, expensive and purposeful, but it’s gonna weigh some so the pillars will need strengthening.
Because of the precision needed to make the doors move synchronously the body of the C-POD has to be solid which is why it can’t be made as a flatpack piece of furniture, a lot of effort and clever construction methods have been used to keep this piece of furniture true to its shape in order to maintain smooth operation of the doors.
The interior was much easier to design and can be done in multiple configurations to suit. Again all constructed from 25mm board, which it really doesn’t need to be but we don’t cut corners on small details and it looks much more professional.
I’m almost there, this design looks great, I’ve got the doors working in perfect synchronicity, strengthened the pillars added some lighting, yeah this is pretty much there. But I find myself at a crossroads…..
What if I could make these doors work automatically? Ummm. Now that would be cool. As it stands all I need to do is put a handle on one of the doors and it works, because of the synchronisation when one door moves the other instantly moves in the opposite direction, so technically it’s finished but I couldn’t get the thought of automation out of my head, so I looked into it.
After some extensive research I could not find a system on the market to achieve what I wanted. However I found a company in Birmingham who made actuators for hospital beds to move into different positions to suit a patient’s needs. At first they didn’t understand what I was trying to do, I’m not making a bed, plus it needs to be safe, an actuator is a very powerful device that requires precise control, now this is where it gets a bit technical, what I required is a pressure sensitiveactuator, two in fact, with a 300mm stroke, at 45mm per second speed, giving a 10 second opening time, and synchronised.
Yep, not easy, but they did it, two IPSO 55 actuators and control box for the synchronisation fitted top and bottom of the doors to allow for simultaneous operation and movement, plus they are pressure sensitive so if for any reason you manage to trap your arm or head, hopefully not, between the doors whilst they are closing they will simply stop and immediately re-open and all you’ll feel is a slight pinch. I know, shouldn’t need this feature but you what people are like. Unfortunately there’s a pretty big BUT, this type of technology ain’t cheap and at 2500 an actuator this was gonna hurt.
So this is my dilemma, I have a perfectly good and uniquely different piece of furniture that works, the door operation and slide worked beautifully much better than I expected, I can hang my coat up in it put my shoes and gloves in it, objective achieved. As a kid I always loved the ‘secret door’ in films and programs, even cartoons. From Scooby doo to James Bond there’s always a secret button or knob or book to turn and a secret door or storage space is revealed, as human nature goes we love this sort of thing.
Look at what I’ve got so far, the strangest looking piece of furniture, to look at it when the doors are closed just makes you think ‘what the hell is it?’, it looks like…….nothing I’ve ever seen before, I don’t know what to compare it to because there is nothing to compare it to, it’s neither here nor there, it stands on its own, so I had to do it. Once I realised I could make those doors work automatically, with a tweak here and a bit of precision there I couldn’t get it out of my head, I knew I could make it work and by keeping the design and the mechanics simple there is very little to go wrong and it would be safe to use and use consistently. Everything was in place , a strong and robust construction, a completely unique design, it was a no-brainer to make the doors automatic.
So here it is, the Mid Air C-POD, I can tell ya, the first time I powered it up and pushed the button to open the doors, wow, I felt like rankenstein bringing his monster to life, it absolutely worked and worked perfectly. I thought I might have to make some adjustments but I shouId’ve trusted myself, what started of as concept design on a note pad, was now a working prototype, I’ve used top quality materials, heavy duty hardware, top quality and safe electronics and two lighting systems all working perfectly, all the extreme effort that went into developing something that didn’t exist before with automatic doors which you just don’t get on furniture, that first operation was a moment.
It’s been almost three years now and it still works just as well as when I first powered it up, I was expecting to do some adjustments during this time but honestly, nothing has needed any maintenance, a clean now and then, but all the mechanics and lights, are all still in perfect working order, testament to good quality materials, clever construction and great design as I said , I should have trusted myself , I know how to make
furniture.
Me and my family use this everyday, the doors open and shut at least 6 times a day, it absolutely works and has exceeded all my expectations. Its become part of our lives, I don’t know how many coats we’ve got in there at the moment 8/9, gloves, scarfs, wife’s got a couple of handbags in there and her work rucksack, we don’t put any shoes in it, I don’t why, it’s just us. But we love it, it’s easy, convenient, stylish and at the end of the day, we all need somewhere to hang a coat.
So what’s next?
I’ve developed and created a proven working system for automated sliding doors and a very unique design, so what else can I do with this ? I guess the obvious answer is a drinks cabinet, yeah we can do that and with a coloured lighting system that you can operate of your phone would make this furniture much more interactive and entertaining. But what else? I’ve had various suggestions, a gun cabinet, skate board rack, vanity unit and even a broom cupboard, can you think of anything else?
There’s no doubt this is a very unusual piece of furniture, it looks like nothing else, it operates and works like nothing else in the furniture market, I’ve shown this piece furniture to a lot of people in this industry, people who know furniture and the most common reaction has been ‘wow’ how’d you do that? It wasn’t easy, but it works, it looks great and is available to buy, I know it’s expensive but it’s safe, it’s top quality, unique and you will not find anything like it, ANYWHERE, else.