Problems rebuilding beds

[essexbearhunter]

I don't know whether you've heard of Vono, but they are/were a very old bed-making company

My old bed at home was a Vono !
The metal frame that lay on top of the rails - with a wire mesh supported by columns of what are essentially the traditional vertical chair springs ( mounted on formed metal "U" beams rather than webbing) - seems like a fusion of traditional upholstery theory with an almost Institutional demand for hygiene (no materials that could harbour bugs!).

This was clearly a step up from the simple wire mesh that has once filled the space between side rails of my current brass/iron bedframe -with all the sagging problems. That mesh was missing when I bought the frame - and historically-inspired ideas of a rope mesh (really saggy ! - and tightening the ropes just pulled in the side rails) were finally abandoned and replaced with something more solid. From that perspective the Vono design , whilst aesthetically unappealing, actually had a lot going for it.


Vono began in 1896 in Dudley Port Tipton, Staffs..reflected in 1956 when the holding company changed name to Duport of Tipton . The group specialised all manner of metal contruction and went on a buying spree after WW2, buying steel companies and bedding company Slumberland(1970). In less than 10 years everything went into reverse and by 1982 -after failing to sell the bedding side to Silentnight- it went to Airsprung Beds of Trowbridge but Vono went to Starplan of Belfast. http://www.starplanbedrooms.com/sections/view/beds/

So perhaps those Union Jack mattresses may have come from UK after all?
(Having said that, companies often sell the License to use their brand names - particularly when they have no use for it themselves, and I see that the other company is specific about its' sales for Vono being strong in countries in the Far East).

Addendum:
http://www.vono.com.my/welcome/about/ Looks like trademark licensing - all made in Southeast Asia.

 

[JoceAndChris]

:shock: 8)

Well, you know that if you want chapter and verse on something, post on PPUK! Thanks Essexbearhunter, how interesting!

 

[JoceAndChris]

Update

There were some very smart ideas in this thread and good detective work, and I just wanted to say that a number of those are being carried out as I type this, though not by me. I decided that as Chris hasn't had time between posting this and now to have a go at some of the suggestions, and I am really not confident in my joinery abilities, I'd take them to an antique bed specialist and have them made usable. The solution is to use the original satinwood rails, as pretty much everyone here wanted, but to cut them and splice in an extra few inches to make them compatible with a standard length mattress. (The experts saying that there must be a couple of inches at either end for tuck room) To avoid the problem that LadyA mentioned of the standard squared off mattress being so wedged in the curved footboard that changing the sheets would be difficult, the antique bed specialists are getting me pocket sprung mattresses made up with curved ends that will fit gently in. The bases are made pretty much as Ivor described - wood with a pretty upholstery.

The total cost for the mattresses and restoration of the two beds is just under £1500, which makes the total price £2300 including purchase price. The £1500 includes making the bases, splicing the side rails and adding some kind of a lip, the curved pocket sprung mattresses, making new brass fixings to join the side rails to the bed as the old fixings were deemed wobbly, waxing the beds, and making 6 gilt nipples in plaster for the bedposts as they were missing. And delivering. Expensive, but not bad value, and worth to have two lovely Edwardian beds up and running.

Thanks for all the help given here, it proved very useful for making informed decisions. Will post a pic when they're in place!

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Good value Joce, and a fantastic result--hope Penners does not notice the 'gilt nipples' :shock: :shock:

 

[LadyArowana]

Good value Joce, and a fantastic result--hope Penners does not notice the 'gilt nipples' :shock: :shock:

Shhhhhhhh, as long as we don't talk about tassels rotating in opposite directions we might get away with it.

 

[Penners]

Good value

I suppose it's because I worked in the furniture industry, and thus paid trade price for everything, that a price of £2300 for a bed makes my hair stand on end!*

As for the gilt nipples, the addition of a "u" would change the meaning of that phrase completely.



* I'm speaking figuratively of course.

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol:

There'll be plenty of tassels swinging around the gilt nipples, about to order 50

Poor Mr P, apparently licorice is good for hair loss. I suggest a large bag of Licorice Allsorts, taken daily.

 

[worms]

The total cost for the mattresses and restoration of the two beds is just under £1500, which makes the total price £2300 including purchase price.

Good value Joce, and a fantastic result.

And to think that I complained about the Memsahib blowing a whole £45 on a new bed from Ikea!

 

[Flyfisher]

Did that include the mattress? :shock:

I can understand skimping on the woodwork but not on something I'm going to use for at least 1/3rd of my life.

 

[worms]

Did that include the mattress? :shock:

I can understand skimping on the woodwork but not on something I'm going to use for at least 1/3rd of my life.

No, I think the mattress was from the bed before the bed before. While its a third of my life too, I tend to be asleep for most of that and if the bed-base is firm enough, I'm less concerned about the mattress.

Of course, being Ikea, the bed has joined the long list of projects that "just" need a little work to greatly improve them. The headboard has insufficient slats to lean a pillow against to sit up with a late-night-port-and-book or early-morning-coffee-and-newspapers-on-iPad. It would only take four pieces of batten to sort but that would mean taking the bed apart, routing a channel in the two rails etc... One of these days...!

 

[JoceAndChris]

Have you considered a big cushion (76 x 76 cm) to lean against? I find these invaluable for sitting up in bed. It may not fall through the slats in quite the same way, and might be large enough to cushion you against the wall at the top of the slats.

http://www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-duck-feather-cushion-pad/p112456

 

[Penners]

Have you considered a big cushion (76 x 76 cm) to lean against? I find these invaluable for sitting up in bed.

With a note of shame in confessing the self-indulgence, I can tell you that we have the ultimate in sitting-up-in-bed luxury - an electric bed. At the press of a button it pushes the upper part of the Dunlopillo mattress up into a backrest and the lower part raises into a kind of pyramid to support your knees. It's wonderful!

I can't confess the price. We bought it about 20 years ago at mate's rates, when I worked in the furniture industry - I have no idea what it would cost nowadays.

As for the licorice, Joce, thank you for the recommendation. If someone were to invent liquorice, I might take you up on the idea!

 

[JoceAndChris]

Those beds are bliss and brilliant for bad backs - I remember them from the RNOH when I was chopped to bits and put back together again, the bed was wonderful and very needed! The nurses said they were thousands of pounds.

As for the spelling of liquorice/licorice, how about John Betjeman's lovely poem? I believe both are acceptable.

"The Licorice Fields At Pontefract

In the licorice fields at Pontefract
My love and I did meet
And many a burdened licorice bush
Was blooming round our feet;
Red hair she had and golden skin,
Her sulky lips were shaped for sin,
Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd
The strongest legs in Pontefract.

The light and dangling licorice flowers
Gave off the sweetest smells;
From various black Victorian towers
The Sunday evening bells
Came pealing over dales and hills
And tanneries and silent mills
And lowly streets where country stops
And little shuttered corner shops.

She cast her blazing eyes on me
And plucked a licorice leaf;
I was her captive slave and she
My red-haired robber chief.
Oh love! for love I could not speak,
It left me winded, wilting, weak,
And held in brown arms strong and bare
And wound with flaming ropes of hair."

 

[Penners]

I assure you, dear Joce, that my comment above wasn't a misplaced criticism of your spelling! It was more an expression of yearning for liquor!

Good old Betjeman! Never far from a hint of sex!

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh! How could I doubt your knowledge of spellings and their alternatives for a single second? I hang my head in shame. You know all the spellings of the invented words and doubtless the spellings of those that haven't been thought of yet!

Liquor, yes, surely the sun is over the yard arm by now?

Betj is wonderful, and a lot more sensible than silly Rex Whistler. I always get the feeling that though, like Rex, he loved and admired beautiful, out of reach women, his eyes and brain were too busy noting the salient features of this and that, and turning them into well crafted stanzas, to be too much perturbed. He might have been left wilted, winded, weak, but he made it to a ripe old age.

 

[Penners]

Indeed, he seems to have been prone to fantasies about women, his best-known being The Subaltern's Love Song. He fancied Joan Hunter-Dunn (a canteen girl) and fantasised about being engaged to her, despite being married himself.

I doubt that he ever consummated the fantasy, since she came (I understand ) from a rather proper, religious background. She later married and became, much more prosaically, Mrs Joan Jackson.

 

[worms]

Have you considered a big cushion (76 x 76 cm) to lean against? I find these invaluable for sitting up in bed. It may not fall through the slats in quite the same way, and might be large enough to cushion you against the wall at the top of the slats.

http://www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-duck-feather-cushion-pad/p112456

Thanks for providing the X chromosome solution! The Y chromosome of course understands blocks of wood and is totally clueless on soft-furnishings!

 

[JoceAndChris]

How I wish I could swap with you! Those Y chromosomes sound a lot more useful than the feathery ones.

Joan Hunter-Dunn, gosh, I never knew she was a canteen gal!! But what a woman.

 

[LadyArowana]

Joan Hunter-Dunn, gosh, I never knew she was a canteen gal!! But what a woman.

This is her obit, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/apr/18/johnbetjeman interesting that it says she lived in Malaya and Singapore. I wonder where. A lot of the old colonial era "black and whites" ( houses that are an odd mix of Tudor revival/ tropical design ) are still standing. I have 2 friends that lived in them, gorgeous properties, but rather porous and prone to visiting wildlife. My Australian buddy would find snakes in the kitchen on occasion, and I can do without that :shock:

 

[worms]

...rather porous and prone to visiting wildlife. My Australian buddy would find snakes in the kitchen on occasion, and I can do without that :shock:

But snakes are good! In the tropics, you need roof snakes to keep the rat population down!