Tricks of the Trade: Pairs of twin beds
I love a pair of twin beds! We generally do them for kids’ rooms, either for a shared space or for one kid who likes to host slumber parties. They are actually also great for a guest room—unlike a single queen, a pair of twins gives you flexbility to host two people who may be friends but not together. In a pinch, you can also push two twins together to make a King.
Generally speaking, we like the beds to match and the bedding to coordinate. I’m such a fan of these metal beds in a guest room in Edina, Minnesota. We dressed them with a mix of floral quilts and lace-trimmed sheets for a cottage effect.
Photo: Scott Amundson
In a shared kids room, it feels more important to signify whose is whose. Here are some of the subtle ways we have differentiated between the pair.
Colorful Throws
In San Francisco, we mixed pom pom bedding and bird-printed sheets with matching lumbar pillows. Both beds got a faux-mohair blanket in a strong color—one pink, one gold.
Photo Thomas Kuoh
Custom Dolls
When my kids were little they shared a large room. I built the coral headboards myself! I sewed the dot-embroidered lumbar pillows, too. They has plain white duvets and white pick-stitch quilts for simplicity but we differentiated the beds with custom dolls in each of their likenesses (also made by me!)
Another trick: use King shams on twin beds. They fill the space side to side, while standard shams don’t. These ruffled pillowcases were a thrifted find.
Photo: Kim Cornelison
Monograms
For boy-girl twins in Deephaven, she got a white embroidered duvet and he got grey stripes. Both were topped with Faribault woolen mills blankets. We echoed the red stripe in a frame border sham—and monogrammed them with each of their first initials.
Photo: Spacecrafting
Throw Pillows and blankets
In a kids’ bunk room in Balsam Lake lovingly dubbed The Orphanage, all the bunks feature gingham sheets and floral duvets, but we added different throw pillows to some of the beds, and mixed up the wool blankets at the foot. (wool blankets are a great way to let cold sleepers pile on the layers.)
Photo: Josh Grubbs
Go For it
In this small room in a Tahoe getaway, we found a pair of vintage tester beds and had bed hanging made to max the fun. Since this room hosts a variety of kids, we mixed primary colors and classic prints like gingham and pendleton blankets to make it all-gender friendly.
Photo: Josh Grubbs