Here's another tale which focuses on the FREEDOM one has in a communal house to inovatively personalize your private space:

DAVID'S BED

David was the housemate who was the engineering genius. Nothing would make David happier than when something broke down, something with a jillion tiny parts that he could spread out on the kitchen table, admire, and then reassemble in working order.

David, like many a genius, had a dream. Well, actually he had many dreams but the one in question had to do with fabricating the ultimate bed, one which would make the most efficient use of his two small rooms and be fully functional. We laughed when he proposed one evening during our communal supper that he was going to design a bed that would rise and disappear into his ceiling. But after due discussion he got our full approval to try.

Well, first he tore out the ceiling plaster exposing the joists, and then he tore off the wall paneling exposing the studs. He designed a pulley system powered by an electric motor and counterweighted with cement blocks that went up and down the stud cavity, with a network of chords that attached to ringbolts in each corner of his new bed frame. He put in a push-button switch on the wall and after some trial runs was able to demonstrate before our admiring eyes the success of his project. He re-installed the wall panel and the finishing touch was to install a fake ceiling onto the bottom of the bed frame so that when the bed was "levitated" the room look perfectly normal to those who entered, although rather empty.

Well, David was one happy boy and his bedroom soon became a "must-see" on the Rivendell house tour. What we'd do is invite our guests to walk into David's room, where they'd look around and invariably say "But where does he sleep?" Whereupon we would trigger the switch and the ceiling would slowly descend above their heads. This usually provoked a pleasing reaction from our guests, pleasing to us at any rate.

However, I'll never forget the time when the bed frame jammed before descending, only to free itself ten seconds later to drop rather abruptly on those below...