Besides the sleigh bed, the canopy bed must be the most romantic bed available. Forget the heart shaped bed with satin sheets. A canopy bed, the two of you snuggled under the canopy, with the curtains closed (if they will). Honey, pucker up.
A canopy bed is any bed with has some kind of cover over it. This could be a mosquito net, a la the tropics, or a lace canopy held between the four uprights of a four-poster bed. The canopy may have a supporting frame, or even be a solid wood canopy. There are usually curtains at the four corners. Whether they can be arranged to enclose the bed depends on how they are made.
The fully enclosed bed goes back to medieval Europe, where the bedrooms had little or no heating capability, and the walls and floors were made of stone. By enclosing the bed with heavy curtains and a canopy, any heat the occupants provided stayed inside the bed and was not sucked away into the room.
Fortunately, heating in the bedroom is no longer a problem, and the curtains and canopy are for fun. And fun they are. Many little girls fantasize about a canopy bed, and if they don’t get it in childhood, want one when they are grown. If their current bed is not so equipped, a canopy frame can be purchased to add to the bed. And, while you would expect a canopy for twin beds or toddler beds, as in a child’s room, there are also canopies for king and queen sized beds.
If you want the canopy feel without the expense of a frame, consider hanging panels of material from the ceiling at the corners of your current bed. This can give the bed a feeling of having a canopy and can be taken down when the desire for the look recedes. You can even hang more material between the four curtains if there is no light or fan in the way. When the seasons change, you can change the material, or go curtain-less for summer and rehang the curtains in the fall. With a little MDF and ingenuity, you should be able to make removable attachments for the ceiling that will allow the curtains to come and go without making a mess on the ceiling. Consider using hooks and a short chain to hang the curtain holder below the ceiling, allowing you to only have the hooks when the curtains are down.
For the boys, a bunk bed gives the same emotional effect as a canopy. It is the enclosed and safe feeling everyone wants in their bed. That is unless they suffer from claustrophobia, in which case enclosed is not a good thing. Thomas Jefferson had a bed that had floor to ceiling bookshelves as the head and foot board. I always thought that was a good idea. Then add simple curtain rods and curtains, and you never have to make your bed again. Just keep the curtains closed.
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November 13th, 2010 at 7:56 am
aluminum curtains rods are much lighter than those steel rods that we previously used **;