Many people aren’t aware that the largest size iron bed frame, being made back in the 1800’s was a double/full size. Quite often it was a common practice to put multiple children in one bed. I’ve seen photo’s of three and four children, turned sideways in the old double size beds. They would stay in the bed until they grew to be to tall to fit in width wise.
Larger queen and king size mattresses and bed frames were not introduced until the mid-1940’s. So people desiring an authentic…….not “reproduction”, “antique iron bed” in a larger usable size, need to alter the original doubles in such a way to not change or interfere with the original design. Hence……… a king conversion, like you see here, was altered to add additional width. To do this the original double needed to be cut at strategic places and additional tubing added , to gain the needed width. But ……when adding tubing, it needs to have whatever subtle curves were originally in the bed……not just straight tubing. That can be the real challenge. In the instance of the bed in this photo, we were compelled to cut and bend “brass tubing ” with multiple curves to match the curvature of the iron tubing across the top………..no easy task. It was quite time consuming and I dare say, a lot of tubing was wasted, trying to get the exact bends and arches needed to look appropriate. But in the end, it was well worth the time.
When we do a king conversion on an original old authentic antique iron bed, our utmost desire is the NOT change the original design any more than is absolutely necessary to achieve the necessary width. If a client falls in love with a particular beds original design…….the last thing we want to do is alter what it is they were attracted to.
If you’re considering a king conversion in the manner I just described, please circle back around to my website to see “Before & After” king conversion photo’s. Then you might want to fill in our form requesting to see our current inventory.
Hope this has been informative and answered some questions regarding larger size king conversions.
