In a few months, several of our customers have turned an office storage unit into their designer bedside table. Here's the story of this repurposing, and an explanation of an object particularly suited to it: the Cosimo storage unit in matte white lacquer, designed by Marco Zanuso Jr.
We didn't come up with the idea.
It was one of our clients who, while furnishing her bedroom, sent us a photo. The Cosimo storage unit, which she had ordered to complement her desk from the same collection, had migrated from her workspace to her bedroom in a few weeks. Placed by the bed, in place of the bedside table. She hadn't sought it out. It had imposed itself.
Other clients followed suit, in their own way. A Parisian architect integrated it symmetrically, on either side of a king-size bed, in an entirely white apartment. A decorator prescribed it for a hotel suite undergoing renovation. The Cosimo storage unit had found a second, more intimate, more unexpected use, and it settled in with surprising obviousness.
Not all storage units are suitable.
To be honest: repurposing an office storage unit as a bedside table doesn't work in all cases. A utilitarian storage unit, with thick fronts, prominent handles, and visible screws, remains what it is: an office storage unit. It won't find its place in a bedroom without visually degrading it.
What changes everything with the Cosimo is the very nature of its design. Marco Zanuso Jr did not design a functional piece of furniture dressed in an aesthetic varnish. He constructed a geometry: slightly rounded corners that soften the silhouette, handle-free fronts, a total absence of visible screws. A piece that says everything with less, and whose formal coherence keeps it from being an accessory.
This level of purity is rare in office furniture. It is precisely what allows its transition into the bedroom.
White, a decision.
The matte white lacquered finish of the Cosimo storage unit is not a neutral option, it's a statement. Matte white rather than glossy: a muted, non-reflective light that absorbs space without dominating it. A shade that dialogues with bed linen, light walls, and the minimalist volumes of a contemporary bedroom.
White is often presented as a minimalist choice. It is also a choice for longevity. It does not age, does not go out of style, and adapts to changes in an interior. In a bedroom, where choices are long-term, this is a decisive quality.
Three drawers. No noise.
The classic bedside table offers a shelf and, sometimes, a drawer. The Cosimo unit offers three, with Push/Pull opening, no handle to grasp, no sudden movement. You touch the front, the drawer opens. You push, it closes silently.
In a bedroom, this detail is not trivial. It's the difference between a piece of furniture that exists in daytime space and a piece of furniture that integrates into the rhythm of the night. Reading, turning off the light, the repeated and discreet gestures that precede sleep. Push/Pull here is an attention to real use, not a technical specification.
The storage volume is real: books, cables, accessories, medicines, everything the bedroom accumulates and which a simple shelf cannot contain.
Mobility as an argument.
The Cosimo storage unit rests on casters. In a bedroom, this is a concrete freedom: moving the furniture to make the bed, slightly shifting the unit to access an outlet, reorienting the space according to the seasons. A fixed bedside table allows none of this.
Its dimensions — 44 × 52 × 55 cm — correspond to the standard height of an adult bed with mattress. The top surface is naturally within reach, effortlessly, without artificial elevation.
A formal heritage.
Marco Zanuso Jr grew up at the heart of Italian industrial design. His uncle, Marco Zanuso Senior, architect and designer, marked the 20th century; he built a personal practice, based on rigorous proportions and structural precision. The Cosimo storage unit belongs to this lineage: an object made in Italy, in small series, where every detail is designed for the long term.
It's not a bedroom piece of furniture. But it's a piece of furniture well-made enough to fit in effortlessly, and discreet enough to stay there.
→ Discover the matte white lacquered Cosimo storage unit
