Occasionally I’ll get a person who loves antique iron beds, but doesn’t want an antique finish. There are many people that want a new modern clean look, almost industrial in nature. As I’ve mentioned many times, the beauty of a metal bed is in the castings the foundry designed back in the 1800’s and…
The photo you’re looking at is our most popular finish…….our Black Smyth. Why is it called that and how did it come about? Read on…….. One day I was in the store cataloging and arranging a new shipment or iron beds that I had just gotten in. It actually had some of the prettiest beds…
Iron beds were not just painted white back in the 1800’s. That is what most peoples concept of a bed is……..white. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Most beds had a variation of colors or accented castings. Many beds of the day were painted with two colors. Generally the perimeter was painted in a…
From the days when Lincoln was in office and Billy the Kid roamed the wild west to when two brothers named Wilbur and Orville took to the skies at Kitty Hawk, and when President Woodrow Wilson announced our entry into the 1st World war, iron beds offered people the handmade craftsmanship and quality they had…
Over the years I’ve had customer want me to do finishes on the iron beds they’ve gotten from me, around everything under the sun. I’ve had child’s parents send me comic books with colors circled that their child wanted their bed painted like. I’ve had the Ralph Lauren Co. send me material swatches, paint chips,…
One of the more enjoyable things I’ve had the privilege to be a part of in my business, was being able to do a bed for a needy family on Extreme Home Makeover TV series. All of the items used on the show are donated. Donating antique iron beds for silent auctions or causes isn’t…
Every little “princess” wants a canopy bed. Some of the best advertising I ever had were the matching set of iron beds in this photo that we had given to my daughter. On sleep overs, her friends were always anxious to ask their parents if they could also get a fancy bed for their room.…
So why is it important to be concerned with the tubing size of your bed? Don’t all iron beds have the same size tubing? Absolutely not. The stability and rigidity of a bed is determined by the size of tubing the manufacturer used back in the 1800’s when they were the most popular beds being…
So what could iron beds and the Statue of Liberty have in common? Well …..take a look at the casting that I had on the corners of one I had. I’ve actually had numerous metal beds with variations of this casting. Recognize it???? It’s a “torch” . The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical…
Few castings that I’ve seen over the years have been as distinctive and detailed as the one in this photo. As far as iron beds go, this one was not really spectacular. But I’d say it was easily in the top third of the best ones I’ve had . The thing that set this bed…