One of the first things you should consider if you’re thinking about purchasing an antique iron bed is where you plan on using it. Is this going to be a bed for your master bedroom that gets a lot of daily use. Or is it for a guest bedroom that gets limited use. Maybe a child’s room.…
Few events in history have attracted more attention than the sinking of the Titanic. The RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, and sank on 15 April 1912, resulting in the deaths of 1,517 people. Making it one of the deadliest…
I’m always searching for vintage photo’s and advertising of iron beds. I must say this is one of the more obscure ones mentioning of an iron bed, I’ve come across. Although I remember seeing bed frames in a number of different animated features of Disney’s. It’s ironic that many many years after this comic book…
Over the years I’ve seen a number of old catalogs and advertising material on antique iron beds. The thing that seems to stand out the most in all of their literature and sales pitch is the cleanliness angle. Iron beds preached the benefits of being clean and “Vermin-Proof”. Although there’s really no reason to believe…
Because of the size of second bedrooms in today’s homes, more and more interior designers are using multiple iron beds in the same room. The ideal thing is to find two that are alike. The second best thing is to find two beds that are similar and look good together. When similar “finishes” are applied,…
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen made when people try and refinish their own antique iron bed is to do an old antique faux’ finish and then have the brass polished up bright and new looking. If you want a new fresh paint job with no distressing or possibly a powdercoated finish…..then polishing the…
Here are two rather diverse “iron bed” advertisements. The first is of a little girl playing with her miniature doll bed. It’s not sure if this was simply a re-touched photo or actually an ” bed” ad. I’ve seen similar ads in the past that had definite script attached discussing the bed in the photo.…
This photo is of a stack of iron beds from the early 1900’s. The obvious difference between these and the metal beds from the 1800’s is the degree of ornamentation and the total lack of decorative iron castings where the metal pieces are joined. More and more metal beds started hitting the market that had…
In 1943 Berea College, in Kentucky, participates in the WWII effort by organizing a scrap metal drive. Here students stand on iron bed frames and make a victory sign with the bed rails. These beds seem to have always been viewed as a “green” item to be used for the greater good in times of…
As you may have seen in a previous blog…….there were little iron beds being made for salesman to carry with them when they went from town to town taking orders for full size beds. These were called “salesman’s samplers”. Those miniature beds were distinctly different from the one in this photo. The miniature one in…