Some commissions stay with you long after they've left the workshop. This pair of single beds is one of them — and they've now travelled about as far as a bed can go and still be in Britain.
It started with an email from Sylvia, up in the far north of Scotland. She'd fallen for our original Hare in the Woodland bed, but her home near Thurso sits in big, open, treeless country — so the woodland didn't quite fit. Could we, she wondered, keep the hare and the moon but lose the trees, and put a scatter of stars in the dark sky instead? And for the second bed, might we carve a different creature by the same moonlight?
We loved the idea. Our artist drew up two headboards: a hare sitting in quiet wonder on the open moor, gazing up at a full moon, and a seal surfacing through moonlit water, ripples spreading out around it. Because the beds were to stand side by side, Sylvia asked for the animals to face one another — so the hare looks right and the seal looks left, the two of them caught in the same still night.
Each headboard is carved and shaded entirely by hand, the moon glowing pale against an inky, star-pricked sky. We built the frames from solid, sustainably sourced timber, keeping the natural shape, grain and knots in the chunky posts. One detail mattered a great deal: getting them safely up the road. So we made both beds fully dismantle-able — headboard, posts and rails all coming apart — and Ben worked out how to fit the pair onto a single pallet for the 570-mile journey north.
They arrived in perfect condition. Sylvia wrote back: "Thank you so much to all the team involved in the creation of my beds — they arrived in perfect condition after their 570 mile journey north to Baligill. The craftsmanship is wonderful — I couldn't be more pleased with them." That's exactly the note we hope to end every commission on.
If a moonlit headboard of your own — a hare, a seal, a stag, a dolphin, or whatever creature means something to you — sounds like your kind of thing, we'd love to design it. You can see this one as the Moonlit Hare Bed, or browse more of our carved and characterful Fantasy Beds for inspiration. Just get in touch and tell us your story.
