In a traditional Japanese home there is no bedroom, because there is no bed. At night a mattress is unrolled on the tatami, a quilt goes over it, and the room is a bedroom. In the morning the mattress is folded into three, the quilt on top of it, and both go into the oshiire, the deep closet built for them. The room is a living room again.

The futon is the object that makes a small house feel large, and it carries a habit worth borrowing even in a home with a bed.

What a futon is

The word is used in English for a folding sofa, which is not what it means in Japan. A Japanese futon is a set. The shikibuton is the mattress, a few centimetres of cotton or wool batting in a cotton cover, firm and laid directly on the tatami. The kakebuton is the quilt that goes on top, traditionally cotton and now often down. A makura, the pillow, finishes it. There is no frame and no base.

Laid out, the set covers most of a small room. Folded, it is a stack about the size of a suitcase. That ratio is the whole design.

The daily fold

The futon is put away every morning, not for appearance but because a futon left on the floor collects moisture from the body and from the tatami beneath, and in a humid climate a damp futon does not last. Folding it and storing it in the closet lets it dry. On fine days it goes outside instead, hung over the balcony rail in the sun, a practice called futon-hoshi that is visible on every residential street in Japan on a clear morning. The sun dries the batting and the airing keeps it light.

Older advice was to beat the hanging futon with a flat rattan paddle, the futon-tataki, and the sound of it was part of a weekday morning. Manufacturers now advise against it, since beating breaks the fibres, and a vacuum or a brush does the job. The airing itself has not changed.

What the habit does

Two things follow from a bed that is put away.

The room is used twice. A six-tatami room, roughly ten square metres, is a bedroom at night and a sitting room, study or children’s playroom by day. Japanese houses are small because land is expensive, and the futon is one of the reasons a small house has been enough.

The day has a clear edge. Folding the futon is a two-minute act that closes the night and opens the morning. There is no unmade bed to walk past all day, because there is no bed. The Japanese morning ritual, in the article on this site, begins with the same gesture: one small thing done completely before anything else.

Futon and danshari

Danshari, the three-step practice of refusing, disposing and separating, asks of every object what it does and whether something else already does it. A futon answers the question for a whole room. There is no bed frame, no headboard, no bedside tables on either side, no under-bed storage full of things that could not be thrown away. There is a closet, and in it a stack of bedding that comes out at night.

That is why the futon appears in most discussions of Japanese minimalism, and why people who try one often keep it. It is less a piece of furniture than the absence of one.

For a home outside Japan

A full futon on tatami is a change few homes will make. The habit underneath is easier.

Put the bed away in some form. If a futon is not practical, a bed that is made within a minute of getting up does most of the same work. The point is the edge between night and day, not the mattress.

Air the bedding. Once a week, on a dry day, hang the duvet over a rail or a chair in the sun, or at least by an open window. Bedding that is aired lasts longer and sleeps better, and the habit costs nothing.

Ask the futon question of the bedroom. What is in this room because the bed is here, and what would the room be if the bed disappeared each morning? Most bedrooms hold a surprising amount of furniture whose only job is to stand next to a bed.

The futon has been folded every morning in Japan for centuries, and it has outlasted a great deal of more comfortable furniture. It does so because it asks less of the house, and gives the room back each day.

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Continue Reading

This article is part of a series exploring Japanese philosophy and intentional living:

• The Oshiire: Why Japanese Rooms Can Be Cleared in Minutes
• A Japanese Morning Ritual in Ten Minutes
• Danshari: A Clear-Eyed Guide to the Japanese Three-Step Practice Behind Marie Kondo
• Koromogae: The Japanese Seasonal Wardrobe Change