Contemporary Bedroom Furniture: Planning A Bed

Contemporary Bedroom Furniture: Planning a Bed

Don’t let your bed be an afterthought. Your bed will be the most prominent object in your room, so it has to go with your bedroom’s theme, color-wise, size-wise, and style-wise. A huge bed in a small room will likely look out of place, as would a four-post bed in a room with sleek modern furnishings.

Bed Sizes

The most popular bed sizes are king, queen, twin and the increasingly popular California king. A California king is narrow and long, rather than the traditional king bed’s square shape. Just make sure you have the exact dimensions of your bed before you go mattress shopping, since bed manufacturers sometimes don’t follow the standard bed sizes exactly.

Bed Styles

Don’t confuse bed sizes with bed styles. Bed styles refer to the headboard and footboard. The basis of any bed is still the mattress and frame, which only vary outwardly in terms of the sizes listed above.

• Daybed. Daybeds are twin beds. What makes them special is that they can double as couches if you position them against a wall. Being compact and versatile, daybeds are great for small spaces.

• Platform. Platform beds are elegantly simple, fitting in with just about any style of decor.

• Sleigh bed. Sleigh beds have curved headboards and foot boards that look like, well…a sleigh. There are simpler and more modern sleigh bed designs, so you can get one even if you are going for a more modern-looking room.

• Four post bed. You know this bed already: it’s the one with a post sticking up out of each corner. The posts can support a canopy, but the canopy is optional.

• Pencil post bed. Pencil post beds are like four-post beds, only the posts are tall and tapered like…well, pencils. Harking back to their heyday in the 1700s, pencil-post beds fit a room with colonial furnishings especially well.