No Naked Bedsteads Please - Dressing the Period Bed

Join us for three days of historic bed dressing. Learn what fabrics and styles are appropriate for high and low post beds for your historic house or museum

October 24th, 25th, and 26th, 2025

The class is in person at Sanborn Mills Farm.

Beds were status, a way to show your wealth. Unlike today, the bed was the place for your fanciest fabrics and elaborate trims. And the bedstead was often located in a prominent place in the home. Entertaining while sitting in a bed, resting on a bed chair, or reclining on a nest of pillows was more common than you might think.

But how to dress your bedstead can seem like an overwhelming project for a small house museum or even a larger mansion with many bedsteads.

Spend three days at Sanborn Mills Farm and learn what your high post or low post, -yes they are dressed also- should look like and what fabrics would have been available.

This workshop will look at common and high style bed dressing from the 17th through the 19th century. We can even talk about the Colonial Revival.

We will dress a bed or two and share samples of all of the fabric possibilities available during each time period. English, French, Dutch, and German have their own take on what a proper bedstead should look like.

The three day workshop will be a combination of lecture, hands on bed dressing and an opportunity to leave with samples of fabrics and trims for several periods and styles and a comprehensive bibliography

No prior knowledge or experience is required for this class.

For more information about this class contact

Rabbit Goody
rabbitgoodythw@gmail.com
518-284-2729 at Thistle Hill Weavers

or

Marsha Grizwin
Program Manager
Sanborn Mills Farm
603-435-7314
www.sanbornmills.org