It feels like nearly every time I’m scrolling on Instagram, I get derailed to watch an ad for the Thuma bed frame. In the clip I’ve seen probably ten or more times now, someone effortlessly clicks together the wooden frame, emphasizing the Japanese joinery that makes this piece both a practical and beautiful stand-out in the category. As someone married to a woodworker (who knows a fair bit about joinery himself) I was intrigued yet skeptical. But after digging deeper, I’m finally ready to give my thoughts.
Shipping & Delivery
Thuma delivers the bed frame in small packages, making it easy to carry piecemeal if you have to. You can also opt for their premium delivery service and have the bed brought inside and set up for you. The delivery folks even take the boxes with them, so you’re left with zero mess.
Thuma also offers a concierge service for customers. «Available via email seven days a week, we pride ourselves on quick response times—not just for the sake of replying, but to actively and efficiently assist customers with their inquiries,» Thuma told ELLE Decor. That means that if you have any questions about the brand’s products, shipping, or anything else you could imagine, you’ll get a response ASAP.
Assembly & Construction
If you opt to assemble the bed yourself, the Thuma bed is a far-cry from some of my previous experiences, googling videos of how to turn on a drill and crying over slats. There are no tools required at all, and they claim (and reviewers back them up) that set-up is a five-minute ordeal.
This is where that Japanese joinery comes in: Rather than trying to screw the headboard into the base the wooden pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, making it easy to do alone. If I’m being picky, the one term I would push back against is «Japanese joinery.» Alec Banks, Head of Brand at Thuma, clarified that «the Japanese joinery featured in our designs is inspired by a traditional woodworking technique known as ‘Kumiki,’ which translates to ‘joining wood together.’ This Japanese carpentry method involves interlocking wood pieces without the use of nails or tools, creating strong, durable structures.»
This is where I turned to my husband, Willem Smith-Clark, a licensed architect and woodworker, for clarification. «Japanese joinery is a 1000+ year tradition of carpentry using integral wood joinery to build homes and most notably temples without the use of fasteners like screws and nails,» says Smith-Clark. «Every culture on earth has had its own wood joinery traditions that developed before the industrial production of fasteners, but the Japanese tradition has been well preserved and has some unique joints and a host of tools and techniques that differ from other traditions. I wouldn’t say Thuma’s joinery is Japanese. It’s certainly joinery, but it’s not really from any specific tradition.»
For anyone interested in the practice, The Art of Japanese Joinery by Kiyosi Seike and Japanese Woodworking Tools: Their Tradition, Spirit, and Use by Toshio Odate are two great books on the subject.
The Thuma bed joinery.
Materials & Sustainability
The Thuma bed frame uses upcycled rubberwood, which comes from the tropical Pará tree. These trees are used to make rubber, where an incision is made in the bark to extract latex. In the past, the trees themselves were often burned at the end of a cycle. To increase its lifespan, brands like Thuma are repurposing the lumber to create furniture.
«Rubberwood is okay for any piece of furniture as its strength is comparable to domestic black walnut lumber. As a byproduct of the rubber industry in Asia and paired with their Vietnamese manufacturing it’s very affordable,» Smith-Clark explains. Using rubberwood for the bed frame is both a nice way to re-use the material and give customers a durable piece that doesn’t cost nearly as much as other hardwood varieties. The one concern? If you have a latex allergy, you may want to consult with the brand or your doctor to make sure there won’t be any effects on your health.
In Summary
Through design, packaging, and materials, Thuma really seems dedicated to getting it right. «We design pieces that are not only eco-friendly, but also timeless in design and durable by nature. Because of this, our pieces are crafted with long-lasting, durable materials and are backed by a lifetime warranty,» the brand told ELLE Decor. Additionally, all of Thuma’s shipping packages are either recyclable or made of recycled materials, which helped the brand earn their GREENGUARD Gold Certification.
Thuma’s commitment to delivering a high-quality piece that is still competitively priced seems fair to me. My husband didn’t necessarily agree. «Know that a lot of that money is going to the marketing—I can’t go a day without seeing their advertising,» says Smith-Clark. «If joinery is what you’re after, consider looking into local woodworkers in your area. Every city and town in the US has craftspeople and some are still hard set on mastering old joinery traditions.»
Tatjana Freund is Hearst’s Fashion & Luxury Commerce Editor, covering beauty, fashion and more across multiple brands. Previously, she worked at ELLE.com and Marie Claire. She’s a fan of whiskey neat, podcasts that give her nightmares, and one time Zoë Kravitz laughed at a joke she made.
