Tips and thoughts on buying a bed part 1

As most people discover when purchasing a bed, there are lots of choices in the marketplace and it can be confusing to have so many beds that “appear” the same at first glance, especially online. What’s the difference? There is a wide variety of pricing and a lot of competing claims around. Because we make iron, wood, leather and brass beds, we see most beds that come to market and are familiar with almost all the manufacturers. Some of the companies besides ourselves, such as Wesley Allen or Cladio Rayes, make a good quality, solid product that can serve your needs well. Then there are others for whom the process of making beds could easily be exchanged for making auto parts. Many of these companies provide products for some of the most widely known retailers. So the first step of buying a quality bed is shaking out the poor manufacturers so you can make a choice among styles. It’s not easy to find starting point but there are differences if you know how to look. I thought it might be helpful to give you our recommendations as a place to start your comparison. Some more specific information on particular materials and methods will be coming soon.

Feeling shaky?

A bed is first, a functional object. It holds your mattress and boxspring (or just mattress if it’s a platform bed) off the floor and will get a tremendous amount of use over it’s lifetime. While Charles P. Rogers designs every bed to to meet this challenge by using good materials and well thought out construction, many beds aren’t so lucky. A good idea is to see if the bed passes the wobble test. Don’t be obnoxious, but a well constructed bed should not flutter in the breeze. If you grasp the head or foot board and give a light shake, does the bed feel loose? If it does, it’s a sure sign this company doesn’t take good construction seriously. You don’t have to use much strength to check the connections, but a failure on the wobble test is a definite sign that worse times are in store. The one exception to the shake test is a headboard that attaches to a standard metal frame (Hollywood frame). They will shake because the connection point to the frame is so low and is meant to be pressed firmly against a wall. The main problem with the wobble test is that with so much shopping taking place on the web or by catalog, sometimes its hard to actually touch one! Looking at consumer comments on various message boards can help, as word of mouth is usually the most reliable analysis of a companies products. Also look at the company a company keeps; if they sell beds and rubber duckies it’s probably a good indication they have no control over the quality of either. Hearing all this you may be saying to yourself “Hey, I can’t touch a Charles P. Rogers bed, I live in Des Moines, maybe it’s wobbly!” Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have pointed it out if they were.

That’s a well made piece of ugly

It happens. A bed can be well made AND ugly. Or maybe it’s just not your style. Whether choosing a platform bed or a traditional brass canopy bed, your going to have to live with it so know what you want to get what you want. Bedroom design has more variations today than ever before. There is an almost endless supply of beds in various styles and materials to fit any aesthetic. Decide what your aesthetic is. Narrow down your choices to a palette of beds and companies you can work with. Wood, iron or brass; fabric or leather? Then move to generalized styling issues; traditional or contemporary, with or without canopy, with or without footboard. Once you have a clear vision of what you will or won’t live with, you can begin to break down beds on more precise details. Which leads us back to ugly. For many people a bed is just a bed and that’s fine. Don’t feel bad about it. You either want to say something with the choice of you bed or you don’t. Style sometimes takes a backseat to price, many put the mattress on and forget it. Since your reading this, I am going to assume your not in this category. At Charles P. Rogers we think a bed should be beautiful, inspiring a level of quality that reflects your desires. Our philosophy has always been that good design and well executed craftsmanship makes a bed worth having. In part 2 we will go into more details that define the difference between a high quality bed and one that just gets you off the floor.