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Add Asian Flair to Your Home with Tansu Style Cabinets
Naturally Beautiful Japanese Cabinets Create Excellent Storage for Asian and Eclectic Spaces
If you like Asian decor, Japanese tansu style cabinets offer an elegant way to add storage to your home. Traditional tansu originated in ancient Japan and were designed to be portable so that they could be carried away in the event of a natural disaster. The cabinets were light weight stackable boxes, and each piece had handles for carrying. Made from woods like elm, Japanese cypress and paulownia, and adorned with simple iron hardware, tansu are prized for their natural rustic beauty. Today, tansu make excellent buffets, kitchen cabinets and dressers. They are available in antiques, reproductions and custom pieces.
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| The bottom section of a mizuya, or kitchen chest, makes a lovely dresser in this master bedroom. |
These steps are designed to look like traditional kaidan or step tansu. The original ones were not built-in and could be disassembled and moved.
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| Why not outfit the whole kitchen in tansu? Here, a two-section (top and bottom) mizuya is the perfect pantry cabinet. The vertical slats were originally designed for the ventilation of food. The doors are sliding panels. |
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| This is the other side of the kitchen. The rest of the finishes were kept simple to let the beauty of the wood cabinets shine. These pieces were custom built to look like tansu. The horizontal bars on the end panel are a traditional detail. |
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| Here is a full view of the kitchen. The Mid-Century Modern chairs and southwestern area rug make this kitchen a bit eclectic.
To see antique tansu and tansu inspired furniture, look at GreenTea Design |
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This is another example of kaidan tansu. The story is that Japanese homes were taxed according to square footage, and many used these steps to access upper rooms they didn't want the government to know about. Before the tax collectors came, the stairs were separated and relocated to other parts of the house.
In this home, it makes a nice display shelf for the owner's Asian accessories collection.
In this home, it makes a nice display shelf for the owner's Asian accessories collection.
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by Patricia Benson
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| This two-piece cabinet serves as a buffet and hutch in this eat-in kitchen. Notice how well it works with the clean straight lines of the Arts and Crafts style dining set. |
by CustomMade.com
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Here is a contemporary custom made cha tansu, or tea cabinet. One of the features of traditional tansu is assymetry.
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| This mizuya, tucked into the corner of a very cozy Asian living room, is an ideal way to hide visual clutter.
To see more antique tansu |
Mahoney Architects and Interiors designed this custom built-in cherry media cabinet for a family room in Tiburon, CA. With its clean lines and Japanese hardware (which was created for the unit), it has the tansu aesthetic, while providing a lot of storage for a modern family.
In one of the bedrooms, they gave a window seat a tansu look by simply adding Japanese style drawer pulls.
Here are more custom cabinets designed for the dining room. The red paint contributes to the Asian feel.
For the guest bath, they created a simple contemporary cabinet with round iron finger pulls.
More: Browse Asian home design photos
Do you have a place for tansu in your home?
More: Browse Asian home design photos
Do you have a place for tansu in your home?
Ideabook updated on Jan. 9, 2011.
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Kitmu, would love to see a photo of your antique media cabinet.
Thanks for the link to Berkeley Mills. Wow, stunning designs!