Craftsman Bedroom Beds

In 1909, Stickley published a compendium of what he considered the best of the houses designed in his workshops and published in the last five years of “The Craftsman” magazine. They range from simple little cottages to large, expensive homes with farm houses, vacation homes and “mountain camps” thrown in as well. However, they are “craftsman”, of course, designed with low maintenance, durability, spacious interiors, liberal use of wood, warmth of colors, structural built-in features and emphasis on charm in mind. Per Stickley, each room must seem complete before a single piece of furniture is added.

In his compendium, he goes to great lengths to describe living rooms, dining rooms, halls and stairways, wall treatments, fabrics, and of course furniture without a single word about “sleeping rooms” as he called them. There are three bedrooms in my city house. Two are plain rooms with casement windows that open up to the rear alley behind the house near the fire escape and to the narrow breezeway between my house and the neighboring building. The master bedroom, though, opens out through French doors to the charming “sleeping porch” (balcony) on the second floor above the main street. Details of how to decorate these rooms has been left entirely up to me.

I started with the beds. Stickley furniture catalogs include few beds and all very basic, but I did use the dimensions that are specified there for three widths. The one design I did copy is the “Knock Down Daybed”. It was shipped in pieces and left assembly to the buyer. (A la Ikea!! Stickley was ahead of the curve…again! and only a few tools were required.)

The master bedroom bed is my design, Craftsman in feeling but a little departure from the “absolutely plain and unornamented” severity that Stickley professed. Harvey Ellis, who worked with the Craftsman Workshops briefly until he died in 1904, added his gorgeous inlay designs that lightened up some classic Stickley pieces. None of his designs were ever added to the general catalog for sale. He might like my bed; not sure Gustav would.

I wanted the third bedroom to feature a brass bed. There were Craftsman metal beds like the beautiful ones I saw in the Gamble House in Pasadena, but none in the Stickley catalogs. I designed this one to show off the beautiful handmade ceramic tiles I bought from the Krugers in Germany (www.tiny-ceramics.com). I had planned the bed to be brass, but the tiles showed off better inlayed in white.