It’s more a right of passage for a parent than even your child……the infamous “Sleepover”. Sounds easy enough. How could one or two friends be that hard to accommodate? Well I have a 16 year old and a 21 year old. When they were much younger, lets say 5, 6 or 7 , sleepovers were unbel
ievably difficult. Why? First of all most kids aren’t use to sleeping in anything other than their own bed. So be prepared for a whole lot of insecurity. The pillow you gave them was too hard, the blankets not soft enough, the sheets are the wrong color and worst of all you didn’t give them a hot chocolate before they went to bed. Crucial things like this can lead to a very difficult evening and probably a few phone calls home.
We employed what I’d like to call “diversionary” tactics…… take their mind off all those tings they’re use to and give them some things they’ve probably never had before.
One of the first things we did was make my daughter room look like a Princesses bedroom….antique iron beds, that we’d converted into a elaborate canopy. As you probably know, original old iron beds are quite high off the ground. That in itself made them feel special and more regal. We also had my daughters bed painted “pink”. Your typical generic bed is usually painted white…… the pink was a nice touch. Beds like this are also , if they’re original old ones, have a tremendous amount of storage space underneath them. It’s a great place to put a pop-up trundle unite that can sleep an additional child. Yet it can be stored away under the top bed when it’s not in use. Now reproduction beds, unless they’re specifically Daybeds, don’t have the clearance for trundle units.
Beds from back in the 1800’s can give you a whole lot of storage space for toys, shoes , even clothes. We had drawers made that we put on rollers that hid away under the herbed. It housed a whole lot of toys and clothes.
I hope you’ve found this blog informative . I invite you to revisit my website
to answer any and all questions you might have about antique iron beds.
I also invite you to take a look at our company Face Book page for multiple photo albums on Custom Finishes, Canopy Conversions and a comprehensive “Before & After” King Conversions album.
