Post by Kyle St. Romain.

I’ve spent a majority of my life, regretfully, without a headboard on my bed. Having moved around quite a bit for work and school, I’ve thought them to be nothing more than luxury that would be too complicated to deal with in a subsequent move. Even in my more permanent digs, the headboard turned into a forgone opportunity. In its place, I opted to go for an accent wall behind the bed. While it looked nice, it did little to enhance my comfort in bed.

Originally, headboards were needed to keep you insulated from cold exterior walls and unpleasant drafts. From what I read, this used to be a fairly serious problem. Stone walls, poor insulation, and damp, cold winters all but required a sturdy, wooden headboard. Fortunately, the human species is no longer at risk of death by draft.

Having evolved with our needs, headboards now fulfill different, but equally practical roles: keeping the pillows from getting wedged between the mattress and the wall, and making reading in bed a more comfortable undertaking. For those of you who don’t have a headboard, you know exactly what I’m talking about here.

Headboards can also provide additional storage around the bed, which is especially useful in smaller living spaces. However, when considering a headboard with overhead storage, be careful what you keep up there. You don’t want something unpleasant falling on your head during a midsummer night’s dream.

In addition to being utilitarian, headboards are also an important design element for your bedroom. They are an opportunity to really make your bedroom standout. Whether it’s a custom, ceiling high headboard, upholstered in exotic crocodile leather, or a simple wrought iron bolt on to your metal frame, headboards are often the focal point of your bedroom.

When selecting a headboard, you have several options: buy one from a manufacturer, commission a custom headboard, or make your own. While custom is often associated with expensive, custom headboards can actually be cheaper than manufactured options. A custom headboard will typically cost several hundred dollars, but can help keep costs down if you are up to making one yourself. Of course, as with most things, this depends the size and materials used.

Since headboards can be made of just about any material imaginable: wood, leather, iron, fabric, tile, or whatever tickles your fancy, you should spend some time considering what material will best suit you’re your needs. An interior designer can be an invaluable resource during this process, and can also help you find someone to make your custom headboard on the cheap. They know people!

What do you look for in a headboard? Simple or grandiose, useful or decorative? Let us know in the comments below.

Tags: bed, bedroom, Charles P. Rogers, Design, Headboards

Post by Craig Jenkins.

Happy spring, everyone! As designers, manufacturers, and sellers of beds and mattresses, an awful lot of work goes into the process of bringing a concept out of our heads and into production. You have to consider everything from design to structural integrity to practicality to color to material and back, and it can be a very daunting albeit extremely rewarding experience. But here’s something no one really thinks about. Once you’ve created something new and exciting, what do you call it? In the past we’ve looked to sources high and low when naming new beds. Sometimes we’re inspired by cities (see our Boston, Paris, Provence, and Milan beds, to name a few). We might also name a bed after a state of mind or way of life that connotes peace (The Dream? The Relax? The Zen?). But I bet you didn’t know that a couple of our beds received their names out of homage to artists whose work in some way inspired them!

Take a look our Mies platform bed, for instance. The Mies gets its name from famed architect and occasional furniture designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, whose penchant for architectural simplicity was a conscious, almost philosophical attempt to match the burgeoning sophistication and modernity of the era in which he lived. (He was most active between the 1920s and 1960s.) Van der Rohe’s influential line of chairs, well, the Barcelona chair in particular, championed a pairing of a metal base with non-metal support materials to which our Mies platform bed’s stainless steel legs are a tip of the hat.

You also might also have noticed that our Mondrian bed is named after Piet Mondrian, Dutch-born painter and one of the shining stars of the De Stijl movement in early 20th Century art. Art lovers will note that the Mondrian bed shares its stark, clean, intersecting lines with De Stijl classics like Mondrian’s “Trafalgar Square”.

That’s it for today. Let’s get out and catch some sunshine!

Tags: bed, bedroom, Charles P. Rogers, Design

Post by Craig Jenkins.

Of the myriad factors that need to be taken into consideration when buying a new bed (material, design, price range, etc.), size has got to be the most important one. But with five different available size options on the market, it can be tricky to decide which is the most advantageous for your specific living situation. We’ve decided to put together a helpful list of areas to take into consideration in deciding what size bed is right for you.

First and foremost, who is the bedroom for? Is it a kid’s room? Maybe a full or twin will do. Two kids? Two twin beds or a daybed and trundle might be better. One adult? Twin or full might work. Two adults? Now you’re looking at a queen or king.

Room size is paramount as well. The bed you’re buying has to fit the room you’e furnishing. Smaller rooms will more than likely require smaller beds as space restrictions dictate the available square footage you have to work with.

The function of the room is also important. Do you use the bedroom just to sleep, or does it double as a sitting room? Do you keep all of your clothing there as well? A room that serves functions other than sleeping will likely require more furniture, and extra furniture eats up precious inches. A room that is just used for sleep might be able to facilitate a larger bed.

Scale is also an area you want to consider. How much of a focal point for your bedroom do you want your bed to be? Is it the centerpiece? Then maybe you might consider a king. Want something a little less lofty? Think queen instead.

In case you all needed a refresher, we’ve also decided to include a helpful chart of mattress size dimensions. Bed size will always depend on the specific design you purchase, but these dimensions will give you a ballpark idea of what to expect:

Twin: 39” x 75”

Full: 54” x 75”

Queen: 60” x 80”

King: 76” x 80”

California King: 72” x 84”

Tags: bed, bedroom, Charles P. Rogers, Design, Mattress selection

Post by Craig Jenkins.

We’ve spoken a lot about daybeds in these pages and how they present a space saving alternative to bigger beds, how they can be small and unassuming by day but with the help of a trundle bed, they can convert into the size equivalent of a king bed. Daybeds are great for people who want all the benefits of a king bed without the real estate to hold one, but we’re actually here to talk about something a little different.

If you are enticed by the idea of a daybed, but want something even smaller, consider the chaise longue. A chaise longue (literally French for “long chair”) is a small hybrid bed/chair that can either be used as a sleeping surface or a relaxing lounge chair. As such, they have a versatility that daybeds don’t quite have. They can be featured in a bedroom, hallway, porch, anywhere your creativity will allow. Chaises can be upholstered as you’ll find many of the classic styles to be, or they can be made of other materials. Explore our own Milan chaise for an example of an iron chaise. Chaises are space savers with a versatility of use that makes them great additions to any household. If you’re looking to furnish a smaller room, a chaise might be something to consider. Good hunting.

Tags: bed, bedroom, Chaise Longue, Charles P. Rogers, daybeds, Design

Post by Laura Cheng.

Hospital Corners – A Tidy Present to Self

Housewives rejoiced in the 1950s when fitted sheets created by an African American woman named Bertha Berman. Before its invention, there was the multitasking flat sheet.  People would fold flat sheets around each of the four corners of the mattress using a technique called the “hospital corner”.  Hospital corners are simply a way of folding and tucking in bed linens under the mattress at the foot of the bed. It proved to be far neater than just cramming the sheets under the mattress.

Source: www.CartoonStock.com Catalog Reference: pknn770, Kinsella, Paul

60 years later, in today’s day and age, anyone who works in a hospital or joins the armed forces still has to learn how to make “hospital corners”. However, for the remainder of the generation who can master all seven episodes of Angry Birds, but don’t know how to fold a hospital corner, feel free to open up your iPad notebook app.

1. Making the bed requires you to bend over. To avoid strain on the back, make sure to bend at the knees and not at the waist.
2. Lay the flat sheet on the bed.
3. Pull it down enough so that it goes over the foot of the bed slightly. The long edges and the foot edge should hang below the bottom of the mattress, and the long edges should hang equally.
4. Tuck the sheet hanging off the foot edge under the mattress.
5. Start at one of the foot edges. Pull straight up, forming a sort of triangle at a 45 degree angle. Just lay it there on the top of the bed.
6. Tuck in any part of the sheet that is hanging below the mattress.
7. Pick up the triangle. Pull it straight down, making a diagonal line.
8. Now tuck it in tightly under the mattress.
9. Repeat for the other corners of the bed.

The instructions will make even more sense after watching someone. What better way to get motivated than directly from a Drill Sergeant?

Now, doesn’t that look nice? You have just wrapped a tidy present to yourself! Hospital corners can be applied to all bed linens, sheets, blankets, etc. And with practice, the end result could look like this:

Tags: bed, bedroom, Charles P. Rogers, Design, Hospital Corners