Canopy Beds

There are very few things in life that bring me as much pleasure as sleeping. Lazy Sunday mornings in bed with the paper and my dogs is one of the highlights of my week, so it should come as no surprise that I have a lot of strong opinions about beds. One of my all time favorite things is the Canopy Bed, the way it creates the sense of a room within a room, is, in my opinion, a sense of intimacy and security that is hard to create in any other way. Pictured above is a bed that I did for an English style house and i think it captures the essence of what i am talking about.

Here are some tips about Canopy Beds:

• I like to use a stronger color on the inside of the bed, it helps to create a "womb-like" feel when you are inside. In the bed shown above, the outside fabric is a silk taffeta, then I lined the inside with a lighter shade of the same thing, and then added a third lining of a shimmering gold silk sheer, on which I had sewn, small imitation pearls, you can't help but feel like royalty when you are inside.
• Another approach is to make the whole thing from a wonderful sheer, that way the whole bed is translucent, this can help create an almost "safari" like feel, or at least a tropical environment.
• When building these beds, it is my preference to take them all the way to the ceiling, and this is for a number of reasons. I think it helps the scale of the bed, I like the verticality of this approach. It also helps when the bed is attached to the ceiling, because the hangings are attached also at the ceiling and therefore you don't need corner posts, which I think is good, especially if you have children who like to take a flying leap at the bed!

I hope that this post inspires you to create your own bed fantasy....sweet dreams!