Wrought Iron Beds and other Metal Furniture

I don't know why but wrought iron beds and other iron furniture always emanate a hint of romance no matter which design. Maybe it is the seeming fragility of the material that evokes this impression. Or maybe because most wrought iron beds are dressed with romantic materials such as lots of pillows, ruches, sheers and silky textiles etc.

Wrought iron furniture never seems to disappear entirely from the sonar of interior design despite any trends. And I know that quite a lot of people share this love for romantic furniture - therefore I did a little research and this is a collection of various styles I found. Maybe it gives you some inspirational thoughts if you are in the middle of decorating or re-furnishing your home.

A completely unusual free form is this lovely bed:

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Another very stylish and more classical form is this metal bed:

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The next bed is kept in a much more simple victorian style design but nevertheless elegant:

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A much more romantic version is this iron bed:

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The next example is a wrought iron daybed. Very simple in its design but with the right decoration a very sweet alternative to the classical chaiselongue or settée:

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Who would not love the next example - the embodiment of a romantic bed, transferred from a different time right out of the history of old Victorian homes?

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A very delicate version of an iron bed is the following example. It looks so fragile that one cannot imagine sleeping in a bed such as this one without collapsing...

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Unfortunately I could not find a better photo of the following iron bed. This design is unusual and truly  artistic. As a completely free and asymetric form it is reminiscent of a sculpture:

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And how stylish is this Italian canopy bed? You simply have to love it:

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Now the following example for a wrought iron bed is quite a different caliber. Grafted and gilded it has been transformed into a luxury bed ready to be used by a princess...

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In addition to above iron bed what about this one from a Moroccan palace:

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Imagine you have a bedroom and then a jewel such as this one. It would be THE eyecatcher and the pride of your home:

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This is a bed design that could be the main piece of a goth inspired room. Imagine dark walls, clad in deep purple velvets with lots of precious decorative objects carefully placed in the room, on the bed itself heavy silk blankets and cushions, all black and purple and ruby red and then this bed frame - perfect!

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The decoration of the following celtic style bed may not be to its best advantage but the frame is gorgeous. Oh what could you do with it in a goth style room with the appropriate lush colours such as deep purple and dark reds and tons of velvet and silks...

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Now who says that only beds can be made and designed in wrought iron? The palette of furniture is endless and the designs are innumerable.

Doesn't this sink look gorgeous? I would love to have one and additionally some matching mirror and other small iron furniture for the bathroom...

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And what about this beautiful little coffee table?

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Another beautiful example is the next one. As you can see it can be more than just garden furniture...

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And how sweet would look this little bench in a lovely sunroom? Surrounded by tropical palms and ferns it could become a wonderful dreamy place:

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 And last but not least - pets are dearly loved family members. So why should a dog or cat not have their own romantic bed such as this one? Don't they deserve some stylish furniture also?

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Hope you loved this collection of wrought iron examples. I think I have to do another post on ornamental iron - there are so many beautiful designs one cannot cover just in one post...

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Dark blue Walls and Roses in the Bedroom

I absolutely love this colour concept: dark blue walls, white furniture and a white floor or carpets. A classical composition that makes a room light and floating. Of course I also love the chair that is shown here with its delicate but simple stripe pattern. I even love the pillow with the embroidered flower design, the small side table etc. Everything very harmoniously decorated. Only the art on the wall is an issue I would personally change. The reason - there is just too much sweetness in this room.

Why would it be better to find an alternative for the wall? Because in my opinion too much repetition leads to boredom and disinterest. The images on the wall too show flower motives. Now look at this image and you will find lots of flower motives in the same style. To try something different would be nice - wouldn't it?

Admittedly the alternative painting shows some flower-like motif too but it is modern style and adds more interest to this room.

  "WhiteWall"
(from the Reminiscences series)
acrylic, 26" x 18"
©Petra Voegtle

The painting belongs to the Reminiscenses series, a painting series that was created from my photo documentary about the Olympic Student Village in Munich, torn down a few years ago in order to be re-constructed.

In order to create a kind of memorial for the beautiful and often funnily painted walls which are now all lost I took hundreds of photos from the village. But this was not enough for me - I also decided to create a painting series from the most impressive and beautiful parts i.e. walls, doors and windows. The peeling paints and especially the marks all the vines left on the plaster created wonderful patterns and structures. There is an extra photo series only about these wall motifs which you will find here.

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GUEST POST: Beauty Lies in Simplicity

Beauty Lies in Simplicity

This is a guest post contributed by Eva Stephen.

The well-known saying “Less is more” can sometimes be a wonderful guide to people looking for ideas on how to decorate or remodel their home. There’s some charm in over-stuffed rooms, full of interesting details, especially if they are exotic. However, simplicity brings beauty and grace to a home that no crowded space can match.

Positive aspects of simple solutions

If you are not a big fan of loud, shocking colours, elaborate decorations on walls and ceilings, unusual furniture and making sure no corner remains empty, you’ll enjoy the positive aspects of simple décor. Minimalistic style:

• brings out the beauty of your home’s architecture
• makes your home look more spacious and elegant
• makes it much easier to keep your house clean and tidy
• has a calming effect on the house’s inhabitants

What’s lovely about minimalistic homes owners is their love for plants. Plants are usually that lively, colourful “detail” that interrupts the sheer simplicity and brings out the house’s beauty.

 Trend Decoration Via

Colours that spell out elegance and style

When decorating walls, there are many factors to consider: the purpose of the room, how many windows it has, how big it is, how you want to feel in it. Teenagers and older people will no doubt want different things from their surroundings.

When going for a simple style in your home, you’ll want your eyes to rest on soothing colours: earthy tones, different shades of brown and cream, peach, very light green, or simply white. Different rooms can have different wall paint, to match the furniture appropriately, but they should all have a soothing effect.

Children’s room is probably the happiest, most colourful room in the house, so even when you want to keep it simple and toned down, the yellow, orange, baby blue and bright green are definitely allowed in the play room.

If you decide on the white throughout, make sure you put up some nice photos, quality paintings or similar details that will open up your home, and not make it look sterile.

In healthy surroundings, healthy body

People who lead messy, disorganized lives often don’t eat properly and have problems with their weight. It’s well known that people who pay attention to how they make and serve food are healthier.

 Jeannies Kitchen Via

You should not eat standing up, hurrying on to some other task, or plopped down on a sofa, watching TV. Food should be eaten at a tidy table in a pleasant atmosphere. Most happy events, whether private or business, are celebrated during a meal, which is why a great amount of care should be given to dining room decoration.

Many people, especially women, are very interested in how their kitchen is decorated. The bigger, more spacious and brighter it is, the easier it is to spend hours in it. Don’t clutter the kitchen with unnecessary elements, but maximize its space and potential putting only what’s necessary in it.

Shop 4 Furniture Via

Beauty and simplicity go together

Another reason to go for the minimalist style in your home is - it is less likely you’ll do a bad job decorating this way. When you clutter your home with many things, the chances are higher some of these things will not look good together. You don’t want your house to look distasteful, but you do want it to be pleasant to live in and beautiful. Keep it simple and you’ll love it.

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Thank you Eva for this lovely article

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STRANGE: What should I do with this?

Some pics I find on the internet really puzzle me - especially when it comes to interior design. The question here is "what the heck am I supposed to do with this special piece of furniture?" I mean the long brown piece that reminds me so very much of the exercises you were supposed to carry out on these vaults in old stinky school gyms.

If this is supposed to serve as seating furniture then I would really fear to lose my balance while reaching for a cup of coffee on the table not to mention these lamps which remind me strangely of hanging boobs...

found on homesolute.com

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SPECIAL SERIES: The Revival of Medieval-Renaissance Bedrooms in the Goth Scene (part 3)

We had a look into the Bedrooms of the Royals and we saw some examples of Ancient Beds and Bedrooms. Most of them were everything else than comfortable and cosy like today's. Hygiene was not known, simple people slept with their animals in the same room sometimes, caves served as bedrooms which can be seen practically allover the world. Mesa Verde in Northern America being one of the most famous certainly.

Now I have another intriguing subject regarding bedrooms: how medieval - renaissance bedrooms experienced a kind of revival in the Goth Scene. I have to admit that I am in no way linked to the Goth Scene and therefore you must forgive me if I get certain things wrong or misinterpret others. Please correct me if there are any errors. I am just fascinated by the opulence of medieval decoration and interior, the materials that are used, the deep colours not to speak of the elegance and the love for detail. Additionally I admire the sophisticated craftmanship that is involved in these interiors, in the furniture, in the textiles.

I do not want to analyze any sociopolitical dependencies and interferences between the various subcultures - I only want to point to some of the commonly known attributes that are accredited to the Goth subculture in the 80's, such as the dark decoration and interior design of  certain rooms which are used as a refuge. Mostly walls and ceilings were kept in black/dark colours and decorated with heavy dark textiles. Accessories such as crosses, dried flowers, heavy chandeliers and candleholders, skulls and horns of dead animals were meant to create the appropriate ambience. It is the elaboration and exclusiveness of the materials that were often used and that fascinate me most:  heavy brocades, silks and embroidered velvets in colours such as deep purple, dark reds, black and dark greens adorned with silver and golden threads. Personally I would refuse though to use anything that was part of a living animal slaughtered to be used for human amusement. There are other ways of presenting the animal in dark images.

In the late 90's though this kind of decoration was replaced by a more commercial  version and changed into a style reminiscent of the Victorian era, accompanied by the art of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. This is probably the reason why the market for heavy medieval or Renaissance style furniture has never died.

It is amazing how large the market actually still is for medieval furniture as replica as well as for originals. Only during my research on the Internet I realized that there is a large interest for extremely heavy bedroom interior and I wonder why. Maybe people are just fed up with all the modern stuff that often lacks imagination, passion and a whiff of mystery? Medieval decoration is undoubtedly impressive but certainly does not fit everywhere. You need large rooms for heavy furniture. You definitely make a strong statement with an interior such as shown in the following images:

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This is a more moderated way of decorating a Goth bedroom which I find quite intriguing:

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Another possibility is to simply use "Gothic" shading for your bedroom, moderate but still giving your room the very special aura of mystery which I could live with:

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Back to the heavy medieval furniture for a bedroom. On my way I found this quite impressive four poster bed that looks like a little chapel. The manufacturer says that the design was inspired from an old Gothic castle king's bed:

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As a "creator of ambience" and stage designer Renzo Mongiardino definitely fulfilled all phantasies of a theatrical sense. One of his creations would certainly make any Goth's heart "burst" into excitement:

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Another American icon designer with a sense for theatrics and drama was Tony Duquette. His house "Dawnridge" in Beverly Hills is full of examples which could fulfil any expectation for the unusual, theatrical design worth a king living within its walls:

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Let's visit the places where people actually still live with the medieval traditions at least design wise. And where would you find more places with Gothic traditions than in England and Scotland? F.e. Edinburgh castle and its neighbourhood can offer you what you might have dreamt of: sleeping in a Gothic bedroom. This would certainly be completely different from any hotel room you might have ever spent the night, adding even a tiny bit of a creepy feeling from a place where hundreds of so-called witches have been murdered:

"...the Witchery was established by James Thomson OBE, in a historic building at the gates of Edinburgh Castle. At the historic heart of Edinburgh's Old Town, the Witchery takes its name from the hundreds of women burned at the stake at the stake as witches on Castlehill during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is reputed that more witches were put to death on Castlehill during the reign of James VI than anywhere else in Scotland. The area around the Witchery by the Castle remains deep in history." (read more)

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You could also pay a visit to Llanthony Secunda Manor, 40 min. away from Cardiff in Wales. How would you feel to sleep in a bedroom such as this one:

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More opportunities to have a medieval hotel stay you will find in Amberly Castle in Sussex. Look at this wonderful bedroom:

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Many grand places in Europe which were blessed with medieval interior that has not been destroyed nor displaced by the various wars have been turned into museums due to the immense costs for renovation and maintenance. Here is an example of an early Renaissance palace in Florence - the Palazzo Davanzati. It is quite interesting to read about the history and welfare of this palace which is symptomatic for many places such as this one:

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To fulfil your own dreams of a Renaissance or medieval revival in your home you might find the following inspirational. 
Look at this fabulous Italian Renaissance bed that I found through Inessa Stewart's blog. Wouldn't this be the jewel of any Goth inspired bedroom?

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Here is another historical Renaissance bed that was used by Heni II, displayed in Chenonceau Castle (France.

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And if you still haven't had enough of medieval bedrooms you could read this interesting article about Beds through the Ages and how people lived/slept in the past.

Another interesting article about the various bedroom interior styles of the English Renaissance period and a short historical background can be found here. But this is by far not everything you can find. For now I leave it to your own discovery...

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SPECIAL SERIES: Bedrooms of the Royals (part 1)

This is the beginning of a new series about bedrooms. Please bear in mind that I am in no way a historian expert so potential errors and misinterpretations may occur and I would be very pleased if you could correct me. The purpose of this series is simply a peek through the keyhole into something that is normally the most intimate room of a home - at least in modern times - the bedroom.

It was so much fun to do this little research and I want to share with you what I have found. Maybe you will find the one or other idea to dive deeper into this subject and have your own joy in your discoveries.

I love to look at bedrooms because they reveal the most of a person I think. Bedrooms are the most private  rooms of a house. Here you normally show the state of your personality that is masked towards the foreign world. Do I exaggerate? Maybe a bit but only a little bit. Though this applies merely to bedrooms which are actually lived in not the ones which are staged for interior design photography.

A quick look into Wikipedia about the definition of a bedroom just for fun reveals the following:

"A bedroom is a private room where people usually sleep for the night or relax during the day. About one third of our lives are spent sleeping and most of the time we are asleep, we are sleeping in a bedroom.To be considered a bedroom the room needs to have a bed. Bedrooms can range from really simple to fairly complex. Other standard furnishings a typical bedroom usually has are, a closet, nightstand, desk, and dresser. Today in richer countries that have houses with multiple bedrooms, a bathroom may be connected to the bedroom. This did not start happening until the mid to late twentieth century."

Well - royal bedrooms may not be the best examples regarding privacy - they were everything else but private but I thought I would start this series with a kind of extreme after we are used to completely different environments today (depending on where we are).These bedrooms are also highly uncomfortable and embarrassing even in my opinion, cold and gloomy at the same time. You would never know who is watching you. I suppose you need to be born into such a lifestyle to feel at home although some of the royal bedrooms are kept surprisingly simple.

Fontainebleau - France

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 Royal-Het-Loo-Palace, Netherlands

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Herrenchiemsee - Germany

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Green Palace - Tehran

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Münchner Residenz - Germany

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Buckingham Palace - Great Britain

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Jaisalmer Palace - India

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Versailles - France

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Palace of Udaipur - India

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City Palace of Jaipur - India

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 Teremnoy Palace -Russia

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Kremlin Palace - Russia

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Btw it was more difficult  to find images of royal bedrooms from all over the world than I thought. European places have been turned into museums mostly due to the immense costs these places need for restauration and maintenance. The original furniture though is often missing (unfortunately) or has been removed due to make it easier for visitors to access the rooms without destroying the original interieur. Many Indian palaces have been transformed into hotels for the very same reasons. The interiors of south east Asian palaces such as Thai, Burmese and others are hardly accessible as they might be still in use by royal family members, due to religious beliefs or political circumstances.