This Weird Japanese Blanket Table Wants to Give You the Best Nap EVER
Chill in the air means Netflix and chill, right? (But like, actually catching up on Mad Men and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). If you’re in the market for a piece of furniture for your full-on winter hibernation, listen up: The Japanese have perfected the art of not leaving the house with these amazing oki-gotatsu blankets from Belle Maison.
Here’s the gist: It’s a blanket wedged between a tabletop and table legs with a heat source beneath it. The concept goes back to ancient times when it was called a kotatsu, or cooking hearth, around the 14th century. You’d stick your feet under the blanket and the heat would rise through the opening in your traditional Japanese garb, warming you from the bottom up.
Apparently most Japanese houses have extremely poor insulation, making these crazy-looking blankets an actual, functional necessity. Now, entire families in Japan gather around the oki-gotatsu and talk, play games, eat and more. It’s a totally worthy investment for the bonding time itself. The jury’s out on whether or not they ship outside of Japan (the website for Belle Maison is in Japanese — and looks like a Japanese Ikea!), but one can dream.
Let us know if you have one of these and how it works in the comments!
(h/t Bored Panda)
