Passer6y
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In winter, water would freeze straight in the buckets inside homes in Brittany, so peasants slept in two-story "box beds" (or cupboard beds). The wooden capsule worked like a self-sustaining heater: dense, drawn curtains trapped the heat of their breath, keeping occupants warm without having to stoke the hearth all night.
The photo shows a rare double-decker structure. To reach the upper "floor," the young woman steps onto a dedicated wooden step attached to the frame. Directly below her is the lower sleeping berth, also concealed behind heavy fabric drapery. The entire bed was elevated high above the floor: this blocked out freezing drafts and protected sleepers from rats and livestock, which often wintered in the very same room.
The shot was taken by photographer Émile Hamonic in the 1900s as he documented France's fading traditional way of life. Soon after, these massive sleeping fortresses would disappear forever—they became too expensive to make and proved extremely dangerous during tuberculosis epidemics due to a total lack of ventilation.
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If your old family photographs need a new life, feel free to reach out to me via email at passer6yart@gmail.com or check my profile bio for more links.
To make sure you don't miss new restorations and fascinating historical shots, follow my profile—I regularly share my work here. Thank you for your support!
sometimesarobot
And rich people had beds with curtains. Same thing, less cramped
RefurbishedArcReactor
Selling you AI slop as "restoration"? Instablock.
temotodochi
AI written description? wtf?
Thorketil
If this really is a restoration and not some AI-generated mess, then it is completely overdone. Old photos should still look their age, rather than being styled like a plastic relief.
Reddeye
100% AI
UseYourVoice
Ignore the AI hate, OP; using it to restore old photos and help people learn about the past is a good use of the technology.
CaptainScarfish
If by "restoring" you mean "fucking up basic details" then sure.
KatsuVohlakari
If it smells like AI slop, it's probably AI slop.
Totallycasual
I would love to sleep in something like this tbh, i went through periods of homelessness when i was a child but i'd always build myself a little fort out of my blankets whether we were in a motel, our car, a halfway house or whatever, it was my little safe space. I could imagine myself feeling very cosey in one of these.
Volpe42
The colored version lost a lot of its definition. Too dark.
Ermennda
I'm pretty sure livestock didn't slept in the same room as that fancily caved bed.
Freak0zoid
Did women of that time shave their legs? In winter? This is AI slop. -1
xizar
Hair removal's been around for millennia.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_removal#History (6 paragraphs in.)
xizar
(This is not a claim that the lady in the photo shaved her legs.)
Freak0zoid
actually, also blocked. I never want to see AI slop. Ever.
JustSeinfeldQuotes
Imagine getting down from there in the middle of the night to pee.
Sebastopol140
I remember seeing a few of those in Brittany when I was a kid, during the seventies. I even once slept in one.
GrazingWaters
How was the experience? Top shelf?
Sebastopol140
It wasn't a double decker. As the post says, they were rare. And well... it was a bed. That closed.
GrazingWaters
Ah. Sounds fun still! Thanks for sharing that experience!
CaptainScarfish
Fuck your AI bullshit
GorillaFLicks
While the reasoning is different, pods similar to these are available to rent in some Asian airports, buses, and capsule-hotels for thrifty travellers.
https://soranews24.com/2025/04/19/beds-on-a-bus-travel-on-japans-first-ever-full-flat-overnight-sleeper-bus-from-tokyo/
BallsLikeWatermelonsPeckerLikeAThimble
My grandson slept in one of these in Tokyo. For like $30 he got a locker for his stuff and a small pod to sleep in. He said it was cool.
xizar
It sounds like an interesting experience to have, but I don't think I'd want to sleep in a pod forever.
Velv3tThunder
Yeah, it's AI. Who fuckin cares? It's not art that was copied or stolen. And let's be honest, it's not like OP took money from the pocket of a "professional restorer". If AI wasn't an option, OP would just not have done anything with the original. Get off your high horses people.
cousteau
Sounds unhealthy to breathe second-hand air like that, but what do I know… Very neat restoration!
DeadWhiteMale
Imagine how expensive such woodwork would be today.
Efreeti
Back then, materials were expensive, work was cheap. Nowadays it's a different balance.
simplynottrying
This isn’t AI??
Freak0zoid
It sadly is AI
EmanNiemThcin
Makes you think it isn't? The right side has far more details in areas that are heavily pixelated on the left side, aka. likely AI interpolation.
EmanNiemThcin
To those in doubt: Mild crack in hat's inner rim: gone. The room suddenly has new corner (top right, where there is writing on the left). Zoom in on the cover before the lower cot: it's a grey pixelated mess on the left, on the right it's finely textured cloth. Cupboard on the left? No discernable grain on the wood. On the right? All the grain. BUT the color difference on lower left side of the cupboard likely due to different woods being used is now gone, but a new Knothole was added.
simplynottrying
Boooooo downvoted!
MarsIsAfire
I find at least 3 obvious AI added mistakes here (not counting all the fabricated texture detail)
AdrianDunne
I had to spend the night in London when I was a student, and the place had beds like this.
YippeeKayakOB
Great work, OP! I love both the colorations and the historical info
Passer6y
Thank you so much! Subscribe so you don't miss new restorations.
Reddeye
It is AI slop bud, sorry.
MarsIsAfire
This is AI slop. And so is the following example. I'm just doing this to prove a point. I pasted a 50% sized version of the original into a free AI chat bot and said to restore this photo and the one it generated (right side) is better IMO than @OPs. I know they're not overtly claiming it's not AI but still. Come on @OP, this isn't the flex you think it is.
Passer6y
It turned out really great for an initial stage. Could you please share the link to the bot? I'd love to use it as one of my tools.
TinkerThinker42
Why would @MarsIsAfire tell you how to improve work that they want you to stop?
Also many imgurians appreciate accurate post tagging.
The "Original Content" tag does not apply here. If you included the your original prompt, or the recording of yourself during your process, that would be original.
The "Restoration" tag dies not apply here. It implies a bespoke process that did not occur. Your post could be more accurately labeled as Individual Prompted Interpolated Scene Simulation.
MarsIsAfire
Yeah, I purposely did not include the "tool" I used. And yeah, I don't understand why they think they did real work here. My whole point was with almost zero effort I duplicated (for free) what they presented as their "work effort" to some very high degree.
TinkerThinker42
Right.
Side note, the phrase I created at the end was with the assistance of an actual bound dictionary.
It's too many syllables and cumbersome to say, but the acronym was what I was really going for.
KatsuVohlakari
Left definitely has that weird AI sheen and bokeh. I think the right could actually fool me
varonicaED
No, details have been entirely changed in the right photo, look at the small statue above the womans head in the original and the non AI, then compare it to the AI, completely changed. It's not a restoration of an original photo, the AI has generated an entirely new image based on the photo.
Ivain
Let's put it like this, the one on the right actually looks like a restored photo, and without the original to compare it to would be way more convincing. But yeah getting details correct is something AI-gen stuff is still horrid at. At least the publicly accessible models.
varonicaED
Wood patterns have been changed, statues are either missing or changed, the material no longer hangs the same, it is a decent depiction of the style of the era, but it's definitely not a photo restoration, it's more like, "create a picture based on this original" type operation.
Passer6y
I just don't get why some people have to be so toxic and aggressive. Some folks clearly lack basic human decency.
CaptainScarfish
Because you didn't restore shit. You prompted an AI to colorize this picture and it fucked up multiple basic details, including in the text. Does that "step" really look "attached" to you? Even a cursory proofread would have shown you that you're fucking full of shit. Fuck your AI bullshit and fuck you.
InitHello
You mean like lying in the tags about what this is? That really does show a lack of decency.
Passer6y
I'm fairly new to this community, so I appreciate the feedback. I'll make sure to get the tags and details right next time. However, that's no excuse for such harsh reactions. People can point out errors politely.
Thorketil
Welcome to imgur.
CaptainScarfish
You didn't make "errors". You LIED. Fuck AI and fuck liars.
EmanNiemThcin
MidwayMarshall
Even without the AI I think it's missing the mark. The original is a bland canid documentation of reality. The right has a random chiaroscuro quality with overly harsh shadows that don't exist in the original. The original was "restored" to look like a painting in an art museum solely for the sake of making it look like a painting in an art museum. It happens with AI restorations of photo-portraits too. Everyone ends up looking like a touched up politician's face from a professional photoshoot.
Ktigre
The crucifix is more obvious. It's a random bunch of shapes in the AI slop image while obviously being a crucifix in the original.
Guestmod
The little toe on the left foot is a big giveaway
Thorketil
Ivain
Yep, also a thing AI does, and one of the reasons so many people hate image-gen AIs, because they can easily be used for art theft even beyond being BUILT on it.
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EmanNiemThcin
Do you know who also spent much time on this? The artist who made that wood carving.
Passer6y
I hope they forgive me.
garbuhj
If you spent "way too long" on prompting ai over and over again to give you this mangled result, then that's on you. This isn't a restoration, this is a mangled hallucination. Seriously, you can't call this a restoration.
FiftyShadesOfMascarpone
Yeah, there is no amount of humanly possible Photoshop work that takes you from the original on the left to the image on the right. When a ton of detail is conjured up out of thin air, that screams "AI slop". I don't care if you did additional work on the image after running it through the plagiarism machine, it's still slop and no longer a historical document.
MonkeyofDeath
Dude, I get the anti-AI sentiment but he posted the original RIGHT NEXT TO IT. He's not being sneaky or dishonest. "Here's the original, historical photo, and a cleaned up version that some will find easier to comprehend since the original is grainy and lacks detail and color." I hate the prevalence of AI everywhere, but used as a tool to help make an obscure, historical thing more accessible to more people would be one of its better uses in my opinion. And it led me to learn about cupboard bed!
xizar
Calling it "cleaned up" is a grotesquerie of the most banal type, though it barely matches your own in defending it.
WeaponizedJerk
Parading it as "restoration" is the problem here.
Efreeti
Not a chance. There was not even any disclaimer of AI use anywhere in the post, they just admitted it in the comments. They are also advertising their services of image restoration, which to me doesn't fly.
Passer6y
Yeah, I know this restoration isn't perfect. But I spent way too much time on it, plus the photo itself is interesting, so I decided to post it anyway.
WeaponizedJerk
Restoration doesn't involve adding detail that was never there in the first place, you just yassified the poor 1900s French peasant girl.
KatsuVohlakari
Stop calling it a restoration please. If your AI tool imagines details all over, it stops being a restoration and becomes a work of fiction.
FiftyShadesOfMascarpone
You used AI. It doesn't really matter how much time you spent on it before or after you resorted to AI. Slop is slop and we don't want any slop on imgur.
Passer6y
Well, that's your opinion. Just hit dislike and keep scrolling.
FiftyShadesOfMascarpone
By not admitting it you're only digging yourself deeper. It's a shame because some of your past colorations looked great, but once you start resorting to AI we can't trust any of your content anymore.
Passer6y
I use AI in all my work; it's just more noticeable in this particular photo, and I see that. I'm well aware of my mistakes and I try to improve every day. Hopefully, you'll like my future work better.
MithridateEupator
Pretty sure OP never claimed to not use AI? Why are you acting like this is an inquisition? If you don't like it, downvote and move on.