Synopsis: Built-in beds with sheltering, decorative enclosures give a room a Scandinavian flavor. This primer on the topic looks at a several examples and makes the case for using them instead of conventional bedroom furniture.

As I paged through Harriet DeWolfe’s collection of books on Scandinavian houses, I marveled at the built-in beds. They are delicious hybrids—part furniture, part room and part fantasy world. You don’t just sit on one of these beds.They’re too tall for that. Instead, you sort of occupy one, like a scout establishing an outpost on a piece of high ground.

Harriet and her husband, Russell, live in a house I designed for them on the western shore of Whidbey Island, in Washington state. From the outset, they were definite about the character they wanted in their home. It had to have Swedish flavor, color and texture. And it had to have built-in cabinet beds, like the ones that Harriet and Russell have so enjoyed during their trips to Scandinavia.

I was fascinated by their vision of the house and excited by the prospect of doing some innovative design work based on historic precedent. It seemed a logical extension of my former career as a costume designer for the stage and my studies of historic preservation in architecture school.

The master suite overlooks the shipping lanes

We eventually worked three built-in beds into the house. The first is in the master suite. This bed’s alcove is raised high enough to allow a full view down the west side of the island, where ships follow the deep channel into Seattle. At the head of the bed, a shelf holds odds and ends, and forms a back- rest for in-bed reading. Along the sides, built-in night tables house drawers over cabinets. Built-in shelf units, replete with light fixtures and electrical outlets, flank the bed head and frame the window above. At the foot, bookshelves built into the lower platform are backed by deep storage drawers that open onto each side of the bed.

Like the trim in the rest of the room, the bed is painted off-white and ties into the chair rails and wainscoting. Quarter-circle brackets hold the foot of the mattress and echo the brackets holding the shelf at window-top level in the kitchen.

Upstairs, the beds engage sloped ceilings

The DeWolfes’ house has a cross-gable roof with shed dormers and cathedral ceilings. These quirky rooflines create grandmother’s-attic-like spaces that are perfect for built-in beds.

Russell’s study has a bed made of Douglas fir with turned columns and two-tone staining. We based this bed on a historic example we found in Scandinavian Country by JoAnn Barwick (ClarksonPotter, 1991).

The bookcase at the tall end of this bed becomes the headboard. It is flanked by massive corner posts made of kiln-dried fir 6x6s. Our cabinetmaker,Dick Kieffer, had three posts turned at a local millwork shop. One post was split in half, becoming the two pilasters at the foot of the bed. Three deep drawers store linens and office supplies below the bed box made for a queen-size mattress and box spring.

For more photos and details on these custom Scandinavian-inspired beds, click the View PDF button below.