Posted on: Saturday, October 25, 2003

Office-in-Bed may inspire redecorating

By Allen Norwood
Knight Ridder News Service

The new Office-in-Bed isn't for everyone — suggested retail is $9,600 — but almost everyone will want it.

The cherry piece from French Heritage, a Los Angeles company, caused the most buzz at the recent wholesale furniture market in High Point, N.C.

The most ingenious touch is a desk surface that spans the bed and slides on rails mounted on the bed's sideboards. When it's not in use, you slide it to the foot of the bed. To read or work, you slide it up toward the headboard.

The surface flips up at an angle for reading, or folds out flat for more serious work.

Gooseneck lighting is built into the headboard. The face of the headboard opens like a roll-top desk to reveal storage space. And a hidden bookcase (or bedside table) pulls out of the end of the headboard.

The Wall Street Journal ignited the buzz when it offered a sneak peek at the bed last month, said French Heritage spokeswoman Morgen Arnold: "We've already had consumers calling about it."