People take radically different approaches to home furnishings. For some

People take radically different approaches to home furnishings. For some people, it is all about creating the most comforting, conventionally attractive home possible. People like this tend to have fairly boring straight forward tastes in furniture, but they do it very well. They don't have extravagant iron furniture. They don't have artifacts from far off places, unless they are some pretty innocuous artifacts designed for tourists. They don't paint their rooms in interesting colors, and rarely use wallpaper unless it has flowers on it. These are not people who put up canopy beds in their houses.

Although the canopy bed was once a very mainstream type of furniture, nowadays it appeals to a very specific type of person. Canopy beds are for the whimsical and the adventurous, the dark and creepy, and the people you just can't quite figure out. Although almost anyone would love to get an heirloom canopy bed as a gift from an ancestor, few people would really be able to bring themselves to take it out of storage. I was fortunate enough to inherit just such an antique bed. It is one of those huge iron frame beds that they do not make any more. It is big, solid, and so heavy that it requires four people to carry. It is also very difficult to disassemble, and almost impossible to transport.

Still, for me a canopy bed like that was worth it. I hired some movers, carefully packed it, and took it to my bedroom. It looked beautiful in there. It was a big iron frame with spiral decorations up and down the sides of the canopies. There were actual cast iron lions feet on the bed, as well as intricately carved figurines on the side! The only problem was the canopy. It had not withstood the years as well as the iron canopy bed head. It was old, faded, and a little bit mildewed. I took it off and put it in storage, but only for sentimental value. I knew I would never be able to use it again.

Finding a canopy bed canopy, however, did not prove too difficult. They are very easy to make so, after a bit of obsessing, I picked out some beautiful fabric. I hung it in strips from the sides of the bed, creating a thin diaphanous barrier from the rest of the room. All in all, the effect is beautiful and haunting. I can't tell you how much I love that bed.