Beds tart up to go front of house

SOMETHING odd is happening inside the Australian home. The furniture is on the move.

Igor

SOMETHING odd is happening inside the Australian home. The furniture is on the move.

There was a time beds lived in the bedroom and couches lived in the lounge room. But recently there has been a fusion, an unholy coming together if you like, of the bed and the couch. Gone are the two and three-seater; in has come a new configuration that has plonked itself slap-bang in front of the plasma tele.

This new thing is, I swear, half-couch, half-bed. Do you sit on it or do you sleep in it? The answer is neither.

You and one other can sprawl all over it; not together -- that would never do in a communal space -- but at right angles, which is a good idea because while the heads can converse the vital bits are pointing in divergent directions.

In the bedroom quite the reverse has happened: the plain-Jane bed has morphed into a work of fabric art.

Once upon a time beds were used for sleeping and were hidden from public view, but modern beds know that they are on show, especially those show-pony king-sized beds.

Exactly how or why this has occurred is something of a mystery. Why would anyone want to show anyone their bed? OK, so some people may show some people their bed, but surely not every visitor to the house? I suspect that beds started to get big ideas about, let's be frank, their prettiness when the design of houses changed.

About 20 years ago the master bedroom migrated to the front of the house and, with bedroom door completely akimbo, or even teasingly ajar, a bold bed vista is afforded any visitor who may walk down the hall.

Of course, as soon as the bed knew that it was being watched, do you know what that cheap hussy of a piece of furniture did? That's right, it started tarting itself up. Some pieces of furniture have no shame.

Long gone is the shapeless bedspread; in has become a series of scatter cushions and pillows as well as something I have yet to work out the purpose of: it goes by the name of a throw and I suspect it may even possess an exotic spelling.

The bed is at the epicentre of what can be described only as the pillowfication of the bedroom. Pillows and cushions have crystallised on the bed and they are multiplying. The pillowfication process gives an otherwise flat bed curves.

The modern bed is on display for all to see and this piece of furniture is lovin' the attention. "Look at me. Look at me. I'm a bed and I'm all covered in pillows. Perhaps you'd like to, ahem, tuck me in?"

Ahh, but before you yield to a pillowfied bed's comely delights you should understand that these pillows are not for messing with. No, no, no. These pillows are for looking at.

Did you realise that these pillows are never just scattered; even though one goes by the name of scatter cushion, they are laid out to a grand and secret design.

Square cushions, for example, cannot be laid square with the bed; they must be set on the diagonal so as to please the eye. Did your eye know that it was displeased with square-set pillows? No, neither did mine, but apparently it was mightily offended.

I think it's time for a bedroom intervention before the show-pony king-sized bed drowns in pillows, cushions and throws.

Bernard Salt is a KPMG Partner.
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