The way Rory Power tells it, themed beds are as much about child psychology as interior decoration. "If you make a bedroom more attractive and interesting for a child then they'll go to bed easier and quicker," says Power, whose company, Lilliput, specialises in children's beds, "and that means less TV at bedtime and a calmer time all around for both parent and child."
Power knows all about musical beds - what goes on in many houses late at night when an exhausted parent goes to comfort a crying child and ends up trying to sleep perched on the edge of a narrow bed or else gives up on an overcrowded double bed because a child is sleeping like a starfish in the middle.
"If a child likes their bed and thinks it is fun," says Power, "they'll want to stay in it longer".
It was this sort of thinking that two years ago led him and his friend Tom Sheehy into attempting to design children's beds. Both had young children and both liked carpentry and, generally, "making things". At the time Power, whose background is electrical engineering, was involved in a computer company and Sheehy was a captain in the Army. The success of the beds in their own houses gave the two men an idea for a business, and Lilliput was born. Two years on, the enterprising duo have left their previous occupations and they recently opened their showrooms in Roundwood, Co Wicklow, to display their range of children's beds, bedroom furniture and wooden toys.
The beds are undeniably cute. The themed beds include: a Dreamboat bed, which is shaped like a boat and has nautical inspired decorations such as anchors and a ship's wheel; a racing car bed modelled on a Formula One car and a locomotive bed based on a cartoon idea of a train. "Originally we decorated the beds with transfers, but in our market research we found that people prefer 3-D wooden decorations because they last longer," says Power.
Not all the beds are so heavily themed. There's a sweetheart bed which is white-painted pine with a pink heart decoration and a star bed which is also pine but with star shapes cut out of the headboard and bed end. They designed all the beds to be full-sized for two reasons - to accommodate parents who occasionally have to sleep in with a child and to ensure that the child doesn't grow out of its bed. However, children don't just grow physically and it's difficult to imagine a burly 17-year-old snuggling up in a bright blue steam-engine shaped bed. Not so, says Power. "Teenagers still do like these beds especially the racing car one."
As well as beds there is a limited but growing range of matching furniture such as a smart-looking radiator cover and a wardrobe, both white with a pink heart motif. Racing car fans can have a locker painted to look like an old-style petrol pump.
Ideas for the beds come from all sorts of places. They used to display the racing car bed on a black and white chequerboard platform but then people wanted to buy the platform as well as the bed. Now they are developing a car bed with a trundle bed beneath it, under a chequerboard platform.
The beds are made in a factory in Wicklow in either pine or, for the more decorative ones, MDF. All styles are available in a range of colours painted with lead-free, non-toxic paint. The partners' strategy is to continue to sell from their own retail outlet via their website.
"We have been approached by shops and distributors who want to sell the range," says Power, "but we feel that the mark up the shops would have to charge would make them unaffordable." Prices currently range from £250 to £275 (€317-€349), with trundle beds adding another £150 (€190). All prices exclude mattresses. The new retail outlet in the centre of Roundwood has allowed them to expand into selling children's wooden toys which they have sourced in Estonia.
Lilliput, Roundwood, Co Wicklow. Tel: 01 2818606 or www.lilliput.ie.
