What is the best way to pack and ship your antique iron bed. The first thing to remember is that your bed isn’t a mirror that needs to be bubble wrapped with Styrofoam peanut’s. It’s thick wall steel tubing and heavy cast iron castings. But……with that being said, there is a degree of fragility to…
The iron bed in this photo was covered with layer upon layer of old lead base paint before it was sandblasted and readied for restoration and paint. It’s often difficult, if not impossible to really see what detailing is under all the 150 to 200 years of paint, until they are sandblasted off. The beauty…
There are few castings , seen on antique iron beds, which have a definitive meaning as that of the “Cornucopia”. It is rich in meaning dating back to medieval times. The dictionary describes a “cornucopia” as a goats horn that is overflowing with abundance. That abundance is symbolized with fresh flowers, fruits and corn. Another…
When it comes to converting our antique iron beds to canopy, there is often a fair amount of confusion on which type of canopy will look best with which type of bed frame. It’s a commonly held opinion that a head and foot board with a straight line top. should automatically have a straight canopy…
Many people just aren’t aware of the proper way antique iron beds should be dressed. If the truth be told………there really is no proper way. Much of how a person dresses their bed depends on two things…….. The gender they’d like it to portray and the setting they want it to blend with. As you…
Over the years I’ve sold well over a hundred iron beds that different manufacturers have ended up reproducing. Sometimes that reproducing occurred here in this country. But most often it took place in China, Taiwan or Spain. All centers of low price labor. But few beds have ever experienced the popularity as the one in…
So you’ve found a beautiful old antique iron bed, gotten home and set it up in your bedroom only to find that once you get your big thick “pillow top” mattress and large square European Pillow Shams…….your headboard is pretty much hidden. What are your options? The first possibility is to have the headboard raised…
Over the years, I’ve had more customers request certain alterations to their iron beds than you can imagine. Most of the time it was to have their beds lowered so a small dog could get into the bed. As you’re probably aware, the rail system on antique iron beds is about 13″ off the ground.…
Back in the early to mid 1800’s the British made a lot of iron beds that incorporated the use of round “mirror medallions”. Originally thought to have no more than a decorative purpose behind them, it was learned that merry old England was fraught with superstition and the belief in the occult. It is a…
So what is “casting with sand”? Especially when it relates to antique iron beds. It’s a process whereby a mold is taken of an object , by building a box around the solid object and then packing a dense mud sand mixture into the box that forms around the solid object. On beds this has…