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…
Back in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, Europe was going full bore in their production of iron beds. We picked up the calling in the early 1800’s and far eclipsed any of the beds Europe was making. There were a few distinctions that set our beds apart from those beds being made throughout Europe…
I’ve lost track of the countless times a prospective customer has said to me, after I’ve showed them the custom antique faux’ finishes we specialize in, ” oh…. I’d only want an iron bed in it’s original condition”. First of all it automatically lets me know what little this person really knows about the restoration…
“Dumping” refers to the practice of a nation or group flooding a market with less than fair-value products in an unfair effort to dominate that market. This is what happened to the iron beds market in this country about 7 years ago. Prior to this time there were a number of good quality manufacturers in…
Very few people have had as much of a hand at exposing generation upon generation to the world or Rock & Roll Music. Dick Clark enabled a young generation to see the music they loved, no just listen to it on the radio. His American Bandstand launched the careers of individuals and groups alike that…
I usually don’t go too far afield from iron beds in the majority of my blogging. And if you take into consideration that there actually is an bed in this “log cabin” on wheels, then I guess I’m still on track. I just couldn’t pass up sharing this particular photo a client emailed me last…
When it comes to iron beds that were being made back in the 1800’s, there were 5 specific size categories. Yet even within those five categories beds could vary in width quite a bit, especially in the Twin Size category. The five different categories of beds were: Crib Size : These usually were very close…