By Thomas Russell — Furniture Today,
High Point— Consumers seeking furniture to complement a new metal bed have a growing number of options as more and more resources offer coordinating nightstands, benches, mirrors, vanities and other case pieces.

The goal is simple: Dress up the room with items that match or complement the style and finish of the metal bed.


That “whole bedroom” approach also tends to make for bigger retail tickets in a relatively small product category.

In some cases, nightstands have metal frames and glass tops and shelves. Others have wood tops or cases with a coordinating metal frame. Benches typically have cushions on metal frames that complement the style of the headboard and/or footboard.

High-end metal bed maker Corsican, for instance, matches the back panels of some 35 benches to the headboard and/or footboard of beds in its line. It also matches the legs and stretchers on the metal benches to the post or leg of the bed, and matches the cushion to the material on a fabric headboard.

The company also offers many styles of metal nightstands to accompany its estimated 1,000 beds. The pieces are available in about 125 finishes, which illustrates Corsican’s custom approach. The company also tailors the height of the nightstands to the beds so that a 24-inch-high table becomes 30 inches to better coordinate with pillowtop mattresses.

Corsican also has 10 benches and six nightstands — some of which have glass shelves — that coordinate with its brass beds.

The regular metal nightstands and benches retail from $350 to $799. The brass nightstands retail from $599 to $999, while the benches retail from $699 to $1,199.
A niche market

Elliott’s Designs is another high-end custom metal bed manufacturer that makes a number of coordinating accessories. They include nightstands with glass shelves, bed benches, quilt racks and cheval mirrors.

Like its beds, these are available in some 20 custom finishes. Benches can be made with customers own material, another highlight of Elliott’s custom approach.

While the coordinating items have been in its line for some 20 years, they don’t necessarily bring in a lot of business. President Elliott Jones estimated they represent about 3% to 4% of sales.

“It’s not a big market,” he said. “It’s just an accommodation.”

Fashion Bed Group has been offering accompanying bedroom pieces for a number of years. Among its all-metal beds, some 30 to 35 have matching accessories, including mirrors and benches. That includes models in its Fashion Five program, which has five metal bed styles available in five different finishes.

Some metal beds in the line also have coordinating nightstands. About 10 of its wood and metal beds also have matching accessories such as benches, nightstands and mirrors.

Coaster Co. has 10 to 15 metal bed models — out of its 50 metal bed SKUs — with matching nightstands or combination nightstands/vanities. One model has a bench at $99 retail. The nightstands range from $49 to $99 retail.

“Metal beds tend to sell a little better when you have more pieces,” said Toby Konetzny, Coaster’s director of marketing. “It’s hard to find nightstands or other pieces to go with them. When you put a couple of pieces with them, it makes it more like a collection.”

Metal beds resource Hillsdale Furniture offers matching nightstands or mirrors on 25% of its line. About 10% of the beds have a matching bench, said Co-CEO John Elting. The items mostly are done on a proprietary basis for individual customers, but Hillsdale also sells a number of them via mail order and the Internet.

In many cases, a nightstand will have a wood top with a drawer and a metal base that matches the finish and style of the bed.

“The more functional you can make it, the more salable it is,” Elting said.
Tables, benches, mirrors

Metal bed manufacturer Wesley Allen has eight tables that can be used as either occasional items or nightstands to complement its beds. Retailing from $199 to $399, they come in any of the 40 finishes available on the beds.

The company also offers four benches from $399 to $599 retail, and at least eight mirrors also available in the 40 finishes.

“These accessory pieces are not something we concentrate on,” said President Victor Sawan. “We do them because we get requests from a certain amount of customers. It’s a service to them. We do sell quite a few of them by accident, but it is not something that we push.”

In some cases, companies like Wesley Allen also are coordinating metal beds with case pieces such as a dresser, chest and armoire.

This past High Point market, Wesley Allen offered its first case pieces to accompany its iron beds. Made with mahogany solids and veneers, they include a French- and an Italian-influenced set with dressers, chests, mirrors and nightstands. Decorative wood and metal accents on the case piece complement the shape or design of metal beds.

The goal was to diversify the line enough to offer consumer’s variety in their bedroom setting.

“Most people decorating their home do not wish to have too much of any one material in the bedroom,” Sawan said. “They don’t want to have an iron bed with two (metal) nightstands, a bench and a mirror. It would overwhelm them. They prefer one nightstand in metal and one in wood. It keeps it eclectic.”

Canadian casual dining and metal bed maker Amisco also has branched out into wood and metal bedroom collections to help fuel growth. Its first two collections, introduced in Toronto in January shown in the United States for the first time in March, were Europa and America.

In each version, wood case pieces, including a nightstand, dresser and chest, sit on a metal frame that mirrors the style of the bed. The bases and handles are available in nine finishes.
Metal matching wood

Hooker Furniture, meanwhile, also wants to coordinate its metal beds more closely with case pieces, but is taking a different direction as it does so. It once offered coordinating benches and nightstands on half its metal bed lineup, but now only offers these items with one of its 13 metal beds.

Due to lower-than-anticipated sales, it dropped the others in order to integrate new and existing metal beds with its wood bedroom collections.

“Hooker will utilize metal beds not only as an option to wood beds, but as a tool to bring many parts of the showroom together for maximum effect and sales — items like armoires, dressers, nightstands, lamps and accessories, as well as attractive bed linens,” said Mike Spece, executive vice president of merchandising and design.

“Customers tend to buy what they can visualize, see and understand,” he continued. “Metal beds certainly bring all of this together for an attractive display, offering the retailer a way to sell several different items at once.”