Small Home Gazette, Fall 2023
Beds For Your Bungalow
A Look at Style and Size Options
Image from Gustav Stickley Catalog of Craftsman Furniture, 1909. The widest version available was 54 inches—the width of a full size mattress.
What type of bed is in your bungalow’s bedroom? New or antique? Arts & Crafts or Mission style, modern, or something else? Twin, full, queen or king?
An unusual, square-spindle brass bed. You may have seen it on the Bungalow Club’s 2017 home tour.
When furnishing our vintage homes, public rooms usually get our full attention. The bedroom is our private retreat, but we still want it to be comfortable and attractive. After all, we spend about a third of our time there.
Whether you are setting up a bungalow bedroom for the first time or want to shake things up after years of burrowing in, the bed is the main event.
Size Matters
Throughout most of history, bed sizes were not standardized and varied widely. In the late 19th century, the twin and full (or double) sizes became the norm. Larger beds existed but were not common. This means that today, if you want a vintage bed, it will likely be a full/double or a twin size. If you want something larger, you may need to go new.
left & right: An antique English Arts & Crafts bed in the author’s bungalow.
Examples of early 20th century beds that might have been found in our bungalows. These are made to hold a full size mattress.
I share a full, or double, vintage bed with my partner. It is just right—not too big, not too small. Full mattresses are 54 by 75 inches (at least in the U.S.), and bed frames will add two or three inches to those dimensions. Old-house bedrooms tend to be smaller—sometimes much smaller—than those in new construction. It is safe to say that most vintage bedrooms were literally made for full-size beds, or two twin beds. Twin beds, which hold mattresses that measure 39 by 75 inches, generally would have been occupied by children or guests. I have seen many bungalow bedrooms that were clearly intended to hold only one twin bed—the size of the room and the arrangement of doors makes it clear that nothing larger will fit.
My bungalow’s main bedroom measures 12 by 11 feet. A full bed, two bedside tables, and a dresser fit comfortably. (The second bedroom is 11 by 10, which also works for a full bed or two twins.) A queen size bed, with a mattress 60 by 80 inches, would also fit the main bedroom. But a king, at 76 inches wide, would overwhelm it—certainly visually if not literally.
A vintage painted metal bed in a snug St. Paul bungalow.
Finally, if you are considering a larger bedframe, think about how much space you will need to get it in place and assembled. This is especially true if it has to go up a narrow stairway and into a space with steeply sloped ceilings.
Reproductions
A new, queen-size bed sold by Stickley, based on a 1903 design by Harvey Ellis.
Once you have determined what size bed works best for you and your bedroom, the next decision is style. The obvious choice are, of course, Mission and Arts & Crafts. If a full size bed is a good fit for you, there are plenty of antiques around, though you will need to look primarily online—eBay, Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, for example. That said, it is worth reaching out to local antiques dealers who specialize in bungalow-era furniture to see what they might have available. Two such local dealers are Carol Eppel Antiques and Eastwood Gallery.
Turned wood spindle bed, queen size, by Birch Lane.
If you need a larger bed, your best bet for Arts & Crafts style is to go with a reproduction. At the height of the Arts & Crafts revival a few years ago, such beds were inescapable. Every furniture and department store had them in their showrooms, and hundreds of options were available online. Though they have largely disappeared from stores, they are still easy to find online, both new and used.
For example, a quick search for “bed queen Mission Arts & Crafts” on Facebook Marketplace turned up several used options within the wider Twin Cities metropolitan area. And if you prefer new, local furniture icon Gabberts carries several variations of Arts & Crafts beds made by the contemporary Stickley furniture company (gabberts.com/stickley-furniture).
Left: King size iron bed from Wayfair. Center: Faux bamboo bed from Leonards New England, based on a style popular during the Victorian era. Right: Bed with semi-transparent, woven cane panels from Leonards New England.
But do not limit your options to Arts & Crafts and Mission styles. In fact, if you want a bed that fits sympathetically into an early 20th century home, a rigidly angular Mission model was likely not what the original occupants used. In the 1920s, many styles were available, including variations based on revivals of traditional Tudor, French and Colonial furniture styles. Metal bedframes, both iron and brass, were widely available. Also common were what are now referred to as cottage and farmhouse styles, often painted. Early bungalow dwellers could also find beds with caned and upholstered headboards and footboards. All of these bed types can still be found in vintage-inspired versions.
And, of course, there is nothing wrong with a Victorian- or Edwardian-era bed. It is safe to assume that many bungalow beds were handed down from the occupants’ parents or grandparents.
Adapted Beds
Leonards New England specializes in remaking early American antique beds into queen and king sizes. In this example, the four bedposts are original; the other elements have been entirely re-created.
To fulfil the wishes of those who want both vintage character and greater mattress surface area, a few creative business people take full size beds and expand them into queens or kings by integrating material into them. Sympathetic wood segments are grafted onto either side of the headboard and footboard. Or, the headboard and footboard are partially disassembled, and new sections are inserted somewhere in between. At the same time, the side rails are extended (or entirely replaced) to accommodate longer mattresses, and then re-mounted near the outer edges of the expanded headboards and footboards. The results of such modifications can be quite convincing. Or, they can look awkward or downright ugly.
If you visited the 1910 house in Maplewood during the Bungalow Club’s 2023 home tour this spring, you likely saw one of these adapted beds. The primary bedroom held a queen-size, 1930s Art Deco bed. One of the homeowners, Stephanie Clausen, purchased the bed and its matching bedside tables and dresser, from Harp Gallery. The business, located in KauKauna, Wisconsin, sells a range of antique furniture and decorative items. A few of the beds they offer—all of them Art Deco or Victorian styles—have been altered to accept a queen or king size mattress.
This Art Deco bed, sold by Harp Gallery in Wisconsin, has been expanded from full/double to queen size by adding sympathetic wood pieces to either side of the headboard and footboard.
Clausen’s Art Deco bed (similar to the bed pictured above) was originally full size, but Harp Gallery added “wings” to either side of the headboard and footboard. The wings are made from wood that matches the original bed, and are shaped with arcs that echo the lines of the Art Deco style. The result is pretty convincing.
Some adaptations are more subtle than others. At least this conversion, from two twins to a king, isn’t trying to hide its past.
I do not recall ever seeing an Arts & Crafts or Mission style vintage bed that had been altered to accept a larger mattress. This may be because beds in these styles usually consist of vertical slats contained within rectangular headboard and footboard frames. This design is simple, and adding elements to the outer edges of the frames would just jumble the straightforward pattern.
Do you have a bed that is beautiful, unusual, or has an interesting story behind it? Consider submitting it to our Treasured Items collection. For details, visit bungalowclub.org/gallery/treasured-items.
