We have had many customers with Craftsman style homes come to us for iron beds. Ever since we became aware of the Craftsman Period and what furnishings and finishes were appropriate, we’ve been trying to come up with earth tone finishes to make our iron beds blend better with their surroundings. Particularly the redwood earth…
DetailsOne of the major things that help our customers focus in on the iron beds they like is familiarizing themselves with the different styles that were available 150 to 200 years ago. In that period of time numerous different Style Classifications came and went and beds seemed to have adapted nicely with all of them.…
DetailsBut back in the 1800’s how did stores or people that wanted to buy iron beds, see what was available. There were catalogs with pencil drawings of the different beds a company offered. But the best way was to see a sample of an actual bed. But that wasn’t practical. Dry good salesman would travel…
DetailsLincoln was in office and Billy the Kid roamed the wild west. There were two brothers named Wilbur and Orville who took to the skies at Kitty Hawk, and when President Woodrow Wilson announced our entry into the 1st World war, iron beds offered people the handmade craftsmanship and quality they had come to expect…
DetailsThe American Craftsman Style, or the American Arts and Crafts Movement, is an American domestic architectural, interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts style and lifestyle philosophy that began in the last years of the 19th century. As a comprehensive design and art movement it remained popular into the 1930s. However, in decorative…
DetailsI had an old picker, who taught me the iron bed business, told me you could always tell the scarcity of an original antique by the amount of “reproductions” you see in the market place. There was a time when there was such an abundance of antique iron beds, that you saw no reproductions on…
DetailsThe Victorian Era is a name for the period from 1837 to 1901, the length of the rule of Britain’s Queen Victoria. American Victorianism was an offshoot of this period and lifestyle that occurred in the United States, chiefly in heavily populated regions such as New England and the Deep South. The name was derived…
DetailsAlthough iron beds were made throughout the 1800’s, way before the Deco period of 1920 thru the 1930’s, there were beds being manufactured in the early to mid 1800’s that had a definite Art Deco look to them. I have to believe whoever designed these “before their time” beds , was definitely marching to a…
DetailsAlthough over the years I’ve been buying and selling iron beds to the entertainment community, none have a fonder memory than the scrolled black twin size iron bed I did for the movie “Casper”. It was a memorable one because it was the first time my first daughter, then 6 yrs old, realized what I…
DetailsIn a city where people drive $100,000. cars and live in studio apartments , I’ve grown accustom to people asking what the most expensive or fanciest iron bed I have is. I’ve had people walk in my store and say they want the fanciest bed I have, only to find out when we delivered it,…
DetailsFor close to 40 years we at Cathouse Iron Beds have been supplying the various movie studios, TV shows and production houses with the iron beds they’ve been using. This particular bed was one we did for the movie “The Holliday” with Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Jack Black. It was a romantic…
DetailsNearly 50% of all the iron beds we sell , we end up raising the headboard. Why? Because with todays pillow top mattresses and large Euro Shams, that most people have, if the headboard wasn’t raised……it would be hidden behind all those pillows etc. The majority of all the interior designers I deal with have…
DetailsOne of the more popular things interior designers like to do when selecting a finish for their clients iron bed, is to match the materials that are going to be on the bed. Most of the antique iron beds I’ve done for the Ralph Lauren Co. over the years have been around specific material swatches…
DetailsThis finish came about as a result of a customer seeing an bed in our store that happened to have this exact look……..except it was on a very thin gauge bed that had been left outside for many years. The bed had seen better days and the white paint that had been it’s original finish,…
DetailsThe Bono Sand finish is one of the more popular finishes we offer on our iron beds. It’s a lighter finish that goes beautifully with “off white” walls or adobe sand finishes. Most of the beds I sold to designers and people in the Santa Fe area have all been refinished in this southwestern style…
DetailsOver the years I’ve sold iron beds to a countless number of professional athletes. Los Angeles Laker’s, Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers, etc etc. Professional golfers, boxers and professional hockey players. But I must say, one of my favorite customers that got a number beds from me was Jennifer & Joe Montana. Jennifer first…
DetailsCottages have always been a great venue for our antique iron beds. Because cottages are usually smaller with bedrooms equally as small, iron beds have been a popular way to bring attention to the bed without making an already small room look more diminutive. Many of the decorators I’ve dealt with, that specialize in country…
DetailsWhy would an bed designer, design a bed with a bowed or curved footboard? Many people feel it’s just something to set one manufacturer apart for another. Something to make straight line beds a little different from the rest. But there actually is a practical reason for “bowed footboard” iron beds. Both of the reasons…
DetailsOccasionally I’ll get a person who loves antique iron beds, but doesn’t want an antique finish. There are many people that want a new modern clean look, almost industrial in nature. As I’ve mentioned many times, the beauty of a metal bed is in the castings the foundry designed back in the 1800’s and…
DetailsThe photo you’re looking at is our most popular finish…….our Black Smyth. Why is it called that and how did it come about? Read on…….. One day I was in the store cataloging and arranging a new shipment or iron beds that I had just gotten in. It actually had some of the prettiest beds…
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