This finish came about as a result of a customer seeing an bed in our store that happened to have this exact look……..except it was on a very thin gauge bed that had been left outside for many years.
The bed had seen better days and the white paint that had been it’s original finish, had wore away over time and rust had turned the majority of ita “brownish” color.
The client that had selected a beautiful iron bed from our inventory, had selected one for a second home in the local mountains outside of Los Angeles, in Big Bear Lake. They had a log cabin that originally had iron beds in it when they bought the place. It was a bed the original owners ended up taking with them when they moved out. It had looked so good in the setting with the round logs, they decided to try and find an original old bed to replace it. The difference between the bed that had been in the house and the one they had selected was the bed they got from me was an original old antique iron bed and the one that they had originally seen was a reproduction and had been painted a pure white. That’s why we came up with a finish to blend with the log colors.
Beds take on their own personality with every new finish they have applied. The “wedding band” bed my customer had selected for his log cabin was perfect in it’s shape and design. Their interior designer had selected it with the shape and logs in mind.
The finish they’d seen on the bed in my store was perfect for their setting and “rustic nature” of the cabin.
It took quite a bit of experimenting to develop the natural weathered and aged look of our “Dark Rusty Crackle”. But it was well worth the time. Every bed we apply it to takes on an extremely old distressed look. In fact it’s probably one of the more distressed finishes we do on our beds.
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 the multiple “Before & After” photo’s on our company Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/ – %21/pages/Cathouse-Antique-Iron-Beds/126838177398
