Poliform Dream bed

The headboard belongs to the wall

On most beds the headboard is fixed to the frame, which caps its width at the width of the mattress. Dream hangs cushioned panels on the wall instead, so the padded surface can run wider than the bed, stop at the bed, or continue behind a pair of bedside tables. The bed then sits in front of it as a separate, low object.

That gives a bedroom two things at once. The panelling makes the wall soft behind your head, which matters if you read in bed against a plaster wall, and it lets a small room look wider, because the eye reads one long horizontal rather than one interrupted rectangle.

The base has rounded, essential lines and stays low, so the panels above it carry the composition. Fabric and leather are both available, and this is another family where a removable cover is worth asking about, since a headboard collects more contact than anything else in the room.

The bedroom storage arrived in 2008 in the same language: bedside tables and chests meant to sit under or beside the panelling rather than compete with it. Ordered together, the pieces read as one wall; ordered separately, the bed still stands on its own.

The padded panels belong to the wall, so they can be wider than the bed.