Saw a really smart way to hide a water heater in a tiny house

I was checking out a friend's tiny house build in Portland last weekend and noticed they built a bench seat right over their water heater. They used a simple frame of 2x4s and some plywood, then added a hinged top for easy access. The whole thing only cost them about $80 in materials and took a Saturday to put together. It got me thinking about other ugly but needed things we could hide with built-in furniture. Has anyone else done something like this with their furnace or electrical panel?

3 comments

3 Comments

tyler_fox411mo ago

Totally get this. My old apartment had this huge, beige breaker box right in the middle of the kitchen wall. I built a shallow cabinet door to cover it with a little magnetic latch, then stuck a cheap dry-erase calendar on the front so it looked like it was supposed to be there. It's crazy how much better a room feels when you just box in the ugly stuff. That bench idea is genius for a water heater.

emery3561mo ago

That bit about hiding ugly but needed stuff is so real. Feels like half of adult life is just trying to make the boring functional things look less bad.

murray.rowan1mo ago

Look at my router sitting on the floor like a sad plastic brick. I spent an hour trying to hide it behind a plant. The plant died.