Frank Gehry is one of our countries most preeminent modern architects. Many years ago he purchased a beautiful scrolled Victorian style bed from me. When I realized who he was, I asked him how it was a person who was on the cutting edge of modern architecture would be buying fancy antique iron beds from me.
He described the house the bed was going in to. It was all severe angle’s of raw steel and polished gray concrete. The bed would be setting on a custom made round concrete pedestal. He asked that we simply sandblast the bed down to it’s original metal color, which is a dove gray, and then spray it clear to preserve the iron. He’d wanted a Pewter look. We did the bed and it look great. In fact we called it our Sandblasted Pewter finish and still offer it to our customers as a great finish.
When I delivered the bed to Franks client I really could appreciate what he was trying to achieve. He wanted a juxtaposition between the modern angles and the soft scrolling feminine lines of the Victorian bed. The thing that enabled these to opposite schools of design to work well with each other was the finish. The Sandblasted Pewter finish was a natural raw look…….just like the concrete and steel.
Iron beds, like any piece of furniture can be adapted into a different school of design by simply employing like finishes. In this instance with Franks client, the finishes looked almost exactly alike. The difference in the two schools of design made one appreciate each one even more because they now both stood out from one and other……..yet worked together because of the same tonality.
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.
