Do we ALL have something wrong with us?  

The Nelson bench is not very funtional??
I have always consider the Nelson bench to be one of the most functional and interesting designs of the 20th. Century.
What a clever concept; Nelson designed a bench that functions as a cooffee table. You can (could) get a cushion for it and use it as a seat.
Nelson designed a whole group of casegoods that can be safely put in the bench to create a wall of drawers, bookshelves, etc.
Nelson conceived the bench and casegoods to also be a wall divider.
Would all of that make the bench 'functional'?
Paul McCobb, Florence Knoll and Harry Bertoia made their version of the bench too.....McCobb's Planner Group used the same principle as Nelson to create the components of a bench and matching casegoods that rest upon a bench.
Likewise, Knoll created their own version of the Basic Storage group, using a bench as a foundation.
What would be more clever and vesatile?
As luck would have it, I bought 2 72" benches from "Home Office Designs" for $200.00 each when they had their clearance sale last summer. They were brand new, but one had scratches and the other had one bit of regluing.
When I got them, I was surprised at how versatile they are. I have one in the diming room against the front bay window....it looks great. I did have the other one against the living room bay window, but moved it to the basement where I created a storage wall with my collection of plastic (are they Ingrid?) 60's album-size storage cubes. They rest nicely on the bench.
I couldn't be happier when the two I have, and this was one of those happy mistakes....I never set out to look for Nelson benches, but they came my way at a price I couldn't pass up.
finalld, I do have a pair of leg-less casegoods from the Nelson Basic Storage system that originally had glass sliding doors. They're in beat-up condition, and they are also on the bench in the basement...more book storage!

Whitespike...
Physics...we're going from a 3000sq/ft house to a 1500sq/ft house. By choice. We want to live more simply. But there's some serious pruning of possession that needs to be done to accomplsh it!