You may be interested to learn that a futon actually isn’t a bed that folds in to a sofa or chair at all. It is certainly what westerners consider a futon to be, but it is not true. A futon is in fact just a bed – it doesn’t convert in to a chair or any other object for that matter.

Futons originated from China and Japan where that have been in use for over four thousand years. The houses in these Far Eastern countries do tend to be a lot smaller than those in the West and as such space is sparse and consequently considered to be very valuable. This lack of space has forced the Chinese and Japanese people to use the rooms in their homes for multiple purposes. A bedroom therefore would not just be a bedroom, in some cases it was the only room in the house so it would need to be a bedroom, living room and kitchen so to have a bed permanently placed in the middle of the room would be very inconvenient.

The need to have multifunctional rooms therefore gave rises to the need to have a bed that could easily be stowed away – hence the futon bed was ‘invented’. Constructed from layers of felted wool – it was dense which meant it was comfortable and warm and the layered construction allowed it to be very easy to roll up and store away in an Oshire (similar to a closet or cupboard).

What we know in the West as a futon has therefore come from the idea of using a space for multiple purposes. Today’s modern futon as we know it has therefore taken the original concept a step further and made not only the space multipurpose but also the futon bed it’s self – i.e. it’s a bed and a sofa which is actually an even better use of space because the traditional futon rolled up would really have served no other purpose.

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