I’ve sort of been into furniture design lately, and I’m a sucker for dark wood and steel. The Copenhagen Four-Drawer Lateral File Credenza happens to have both. It’s meant to be office furniture, so the fact that I have neither an office, nor the $1,500 this thing costs puts a bit of a damper on my chances of ever owning one.

I spent a few minutes on Ikea however, and found something vaguely similar ( BJURSTA Sideboard, $250 ), minus the steel legs. I’m sure if I had more time, I could find something that came even closer for far less. The differences in fit and finish are pretty obvious, even from the image, but the $1,250 difference explains some of that.

So Catherine and I had been looking for a second couch for our apartment. We’d been to all the usual suspects and even resorted to looking on-line. Our criteria was that it had to look somewhat contemporary while still being usable as a sleeper for when we had guests over. It was relatively easy to find couches we liked but they would usually end up not being sleepers or they were priced outrageously.

We finally found one that fit our needs perfectly. It’s one of those products of design that adheres to the old cliche, “Form follows function.” It literally can transform from being a sofa, to two separate armchairs and finally to a bed. At $600 (which is $300 more than we set out to spend) it may be a little pricey for some, but in comparison to other sofas of this style, it’s certainly affordable.