Australian bedrooms are storage poor and nobody warns you. Older homes have a single robe with one shelf and a hanging rail. Newer builds hand you a walk-in that turns out to be a corridor with hangers. Either way the overflow ends up in the same three places: on a chair, under the bed in a shopping bag, and in a plastic tub in the garage. The Manchester range answers that arithmetically. One of each piece gives a bedroom fifteen drawers, in four distinct sizes, each of which is genuinely suited to different things. Here is what each one measures and what it will actually hold. Key Takeaways Fifteen drawers total: two in the bed, two in the bedside, five in the tallboy, six in the chest. Under bed drawers are 43cm deep and 25.9cm high, opening at the foot of the bed. Tallboy stands 114cm tall on a 100cm footprint, chest is 85cm tall and 140cm wide. Every case piece is 45cm deep, so they line up on one wall. Solid pine structure, crisp white finish, panelled fronts and round silver handles. Two in the Bed, Costing You No Floor Space The Manchester Pine Queen Bed Frame with 2 Drawers carries its two drawers in the footboard, so they pull out toward the end of the bed instead of along the sides. That is the difference between storage you use and storage you gave up on, because the walkway at the foot of the bed is space every bedroom already has, while 60cm of clear floor down one side is space most do not. Inside, each drawer is 43cm deep and 25.9cm high. The queen drawers are 70cm wide and the king drawers 85cm. The bases are lined, which matters more than it sounds: a lined drawer under a bed does not sand the finish off folded clothing every time it rolls in and out. What fits is flat, seasonal and infrequent. Spare sheet sets. Beach towels between December and March. The winter layers you will not touch until May. What does not fit is anything with loft, so do not plan on hiding a spare doona in there and then feeling cheated. All three sizes come both ways. If the linen already has a home, the plain double and king frames keep the footboard lower and the room visually quieter. If it does not, the double with drawers is the version that buys back a cupboard, and in a second bedroom or a kid's room that cupboard is usually the one you needed. Two Beside the Bed, and What They Are Really For The Manchester Pine 2 Drawer Bedside Table is W55 x D45 x H60cm, with two drawers measuring 37.5cm wide, 37cm deep and 18.6cm high inside. That is not a lot of volume, and it is not meant to be. A bedside drawer is the fastest storage in the house to fill with things you never look at again, which is why two shallow ones beat one deep one. The 60cm height is the number worth checking before you buy. It wants to land somewhere near the top of your mattress so that reaching a glass of water at two in the morning does not involve groping around below the level of the bed. Most mattress and base combinations land between 55cm and 65cm, so 60cm sits comfortably in the middle. Two drawers rather than an open shelf is also a decision about who sees your bedroom. A shelf puts the charger cable, the blister pack and the hair ties on permanent display. A drawer takes all of it and gives you back a clear surface for a lamp and one book. Five in the Tallboy, Stacked Upward The Manchester Pine 5 Drawer Tallboy is W100 x D45 x H114cm. Two narrow drawers sit across the top at 38cm wide and 19.9cm high, then three full width drawers at 81.5cm wide and 22.5cm high. The split is the useful part. The small top pair takes socks, underwear, belts and the things that disappear into a big drawer forever, while the three below take folded jumpers and denim. The height is worth noting against your room. At 114cm the tallboy clears most bedside heights and still passes under a standard window sill, which is what lets it go in the awkward metre of wall between a window and a door frame that no other piece of furniture fits. A metre of wall for five drawers is the best exchange rate in the range. The trade-off is the top surface. At 114cm it is above eye line for anyone sitting down and just below eye line standing, so it works for a plant and a tray, not for a mirror and a morning routine. If you want a surface to get ready at, you want the chest instead. [products-of-collection collection="manchester" heading="Shop the Manchester Collection" limit="12" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-manchester-1"] Six in the Chest, Spread Sideways The Manchester Pine 6 Drawer Chest is W140 x D45 x H85cm with six drawers, each 59cm wide, 37cm deep and 20.6cm high. Six drawers of one consistent size is a different proposition to the tallboy: nothing is sized for small items, so this is the piece for clothing in volume, plus the linen that has nowhere else to go. The 85cm height is the real reason to choose it. That is bench height, which turns the top into the place a lamp lives, where the tray for keys and a watch sits, and where the folded washing waits for two days before anyone puts it away. In a bedroom that has to do the job of a dressing room, that surface earns more than the sixth drawer does. The cost is wall. At 140cm it needs a genuinely empty run, and the moment you add the Manchester Pine Mirror above it you are committing that wall permanently. Worth measuring before you fall for it, because a chest in the wrong spot blocks a robe door and there is no fixing that afterwards. The Mirror, and the Cheapest Fix for a Dark Room The mirror is 100 x 100cm and only 5cm deep, framed in the same white with the same moulded detailing. It attaches to the top of the chest or hangs on its own, and if you want the two as a single purchase there is a Manchester Pine 6 Drawer Chest With Mirror. There is a reason the mirror belongs in this range in particular. A bedroom carrying fifteen drawers is a bedroom carrying a lot of closed timber, and closed timber absorbs a room. Hang a square metre of glass above the chest and half of that mass reads as depth instead of bulk. It is the one piece here that gives space back rather than taking it, which is why it is worth buying at the same time as the chest and not two years later. It also does the job the range is quietly built around. The Manchester pieces are white on purpose, not because white is fashionable but because a room with fifteen drawers in it can very easily read as a wall of furniture. White, with panelled fronts that break the surface into smaller shapes, keeps a heavily furnished bedroom feeling lighter than it has any right to. What Fifteen Drawers Costs in Floor Space Here is the honest maths before you buy the lot. Every case piece is 45cm deep, which is the number that matters in a narrow room, because 45cm out from the wall is what you lose. Along the wall, the chest takes 140cm, the tallboy 100cm and each bedside table 55cm. One of each, plus a pair of bedsides, needs roughly 4.7 metres of wall that is not already a door, a window or a robe. Most Australian bedrooms do not have that, and the answer is not to squeeze. It is to choose between the tallboy and the chest rather than buying both, which drops you to eleven or twelve drawers and about 3 metres of wall. The bed, the bedsides and one case piece is a complete bedroom, and it is the combination most rooms should be buying. Start with the bed and one storage piece, live with it for a season, and add the second only if you still need it. Furniture bought in that order almost never ends up in the garage, which is the fate of most of the plastic tubs it replaces. Frequently Asked Questions How many drawers are in the Manchester collection? Fifteen, if you buy one of each storage piece. Two in the footboard of the bed, two in the bedside table, five in the tallboy and six in the chest. Bought separately, each piece still works on its own. How big are the Manchester under bed drawers? Each drawer is 43cm deep and 25.9cm high inside. The queen drawers are 70cm wide and the king drawers 85cm wide. There are two on every bed frame that has them, and they pull out at the foot of the bed rather than the sides. Which is better, the Manchester tallboy or the chest? It depends on your wall, not your wardrobe. The tallboy is 100cm wide and 114cm tall. The chest is 140cm wide and 85cm tall and gives you a surface at hip height. If you have one long empty wall, take the chest. If all you have is a corner, take the tallboy. Is Manchester furniture solid timber? The structure is solid pine, finished in crisp white with panelled fronts, moulded edges and round silver handles. The bed frames use a slat base, so no separate bed base is needed. How much wall does a full Manchester bedroom need? Roughly 4.7 metres of wall in total, not counting the bed. The chest takes 140cm, the tallboy 100cm, and two bedside tables 55cm each. Every case piece is 45cm deep. Related Posts Why the London Collection Keeps Its Drawers at the Foot of the Bed Bedside Table Height Guide: The Perfect Rule for Your Bedroom Hamptons Bedroom Style: Create a Light Elegant Coastal Retreat Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
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Pine has a reputation problem in this country, and it is not entirely undeserved. Say the word and most people picture a flat-pack bookshelf, an unfinished student desk, or the orange-tinged bedroom suite that came with a rental in 1998. It is the timber people assume they are settling for. So it is worth knowing that pine sits inside 105 of the 128 pieces Cedora currently sells, across six of its eight ranges, and that in not one of them is it what you look at. It is under paint, under an oak top, under veneer, or holding up a set of solid oak legs. Here is where it goes and why that is a deliberate decision rather than a corner cut. Key Takeaways Pine is in 105 of 128 active pieces, across six of the eight ranges. Only Byron and Oxford contain no pine. Both are solid acacia. In every range pine is structural, never the visible finish. London, Manchester and Newcastle paint over it. Bristol tops it with oak. Liverpool veneers it. Richmond pairs a pine structure with solid oak legs. What Pine Is Actually Doing in There Structural timber has a different job from surface timber, and the qualities that make a good frame are not the ones that make a good tabletop. A frame needs to stay dimensionally stable through a Melbourne winter and a Brisbane summer, hold a screw without splitting, and not weigh so much that a bed cannot be carried up a staircase. Pine does all three, which is why it has held the job for a century. What it does not do well is sit exposed on a surface that gets used. It is softer than oak or acacia, so it takes a dent where they would take a scratch, and bare pine yellows unevenly in Australian light. Both of those problems disappear the moment the timber is painted, topped or veneered, which is precisely what every Cedora range does with it. So the honest way to read a spec sheet that says solid pine structure is not "this is a cheap timber". It is "the money in this piece went somewhere you will actually see". Whether that trade is a good one depends entirely on where the maker then spent it, which is the useful comparison between the ranges. London and Manchester: Pine Under Paint Twenty-two pieces between them, all listed as a solid pine structure, all finished in crisp white. This is the most straightforward use of the timber in the catalogue, and the one where the logic is clearest. Paint does not care about grain. A painted panel on pine and a painted panel on oak look identical from a metre away, and one of them costs a great deal more to make. What that buys instead is detail. Both ranges carry panelled fronts, moulded edges and a plinth base, all of which are shaping and joinery rather than material. Put the budget into a plain hardwood carcass and you get plain furniture in nice timber. Put it into pine and profiling and you get the London Pine 6 Drawer Chest at W140 x D45 x H85cm, or the Manchester Pine 5 Drawer Tallboy at W100 x D45 x H114cm, both of which read as considerably more expensive than they are. Pine also earns its place structurally in the bed frames. The London Pine Queen Bed Frame with 2 Drawers carries two drawers in its footboard on metal runners, and a drawer that runs on a frame needs that frame to stay square for years. A light, stable timber is not a compromise there. It is the correct engineering answer. Manchester Pine 5 Drawer Tallboy [products-of-collection collection="hamptons-bedroom-furniture" heading="Painted Pine Bedroom Furniture" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-pine-1"] Bristol: Pine Under an Oak Top Bristol's eight pieces take a different route. The material is recorded as an oak top on a solid pine structure, which splits the piece along exactly the line where it matters: hardwood on the horizontal surfaces that take wear, pine in the vertical carcass that does not. It is the most efficient version of the idea in the catalogue. On a Bristol Pine 6 Drawer Chest the only part that meets a lamp base, a set of keys or a coffee cup is oak. The sides, the back and the drawer boxes are pine, and nothing about that is visible or, frankly, relevant to how the piece lives. You pay for hardwood on the square metre that needs it. Bristol is also the range that shows what pine buys you in flexibility. Its queen frame is 162.4cm wide against 169cm for the painted Hamptons frames, and the tallboy is 110cm tall rather than 114cm or 120cm. Lighter structural timber makes those proportions easier to draw, and in a small bedroom the few centimetres are worth more than the material story. Bristol Pine 6 Drawer Chest Liverpool and Richmond: Under Veneer, Behind Oak Legs The two largest ranges use pine in the two remaining ways. Liverpool, at forty pieces, is listed as a solid pine frame with oak veneer across thirty-four of them, and the six bed frames as pine with MDFV oak and a fabric headboard. Veneer gets a bad name it has not deserved for decades: a thin oak surface over a stable pine core is more dimensionally reliable across a wide panel than solid oak is, because it does not move with the seasons the same way. Richmond takes the opposite approach across its twenty-seven pieces, pairing a pine structure with solid oak legs. The oak goes exactly where the load and the knocks concentrate, at the corners a chair hits every day, and the pine does the spanning work in between. The Richmond Pine Dining Table 240cm - Natural is a two and a half metre span held up by that combination. Between the two, that is sixty-seven of the 105 pine pieces, and neither of them is sold as pine furniture. Nobody browsing the Liverpool range is thinking about the frame under the veneer, which is rather the point of a well-made frame. Richmond Pine Dining Table 240cm - Natural Should You Care That It Is Pine Only in two situations, and it is worth being direct about both. The first is if you are buying an exposed timber surface and the spec sheet says pine with no top and no veneer, which in this catalogue does not happen, but does happen elsewhere. Bare pine on a dining table will show every fork and every hot mug within a year. The second is weight and permanence. Pine-framed furniture is lighter, which is a genuine advantage in a rental or a house you rearrange, and a mild disadvantage if you want a piece that feels immovable. A solid hardwood chest announces itself when you push it. A painted pine one of the same size does not, and some people want that heft. Everything else is noise. Care is the same as for any sealed timber furniture: wipe rather than soak, mats under hot dishes, and keep pieces out of unfiltered afternoon sun. The structure underneath will outlast your interest in the colour, which is the most anyone should ask of a frame. Bristol Pine Queen Bed Frame [products-of-collection collection="liverpool" heading="Pine Framed, Oak Veneered" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-pine-2"] Frequently Asked Questions How much of Cedora's range is pine? Pine appears in 105 of the 128 pieces currently in the range, across six of the eight collections. Only Byron and Oxford contain no pine at all. In every one of those 105 pieces it is structural rather than the visible finish. Is pine furniture strong enough for a bed frame? Yes, and it is the standard choice for one. Pine is stable, holds a fixing well and is light enough that a queen frame can be moved by two people. Cedora's London, Manchester and Bristol bed frames all use a solid pine structure with a slat base. Does pine dent more easily than oak? It does. Pine is softer, so it takes a dent where a harder timber would take a scratch. It matters on a surface and barely matters on a frame, which is why Cedora paints it, tops it or veneers it rather than leaving it exposed. Which Cedora ranges have no pine? Byron and Oxford. Both are built from solid acacia, with an MDF back panel on the sideboards and TV units. Everything else in the catalogue has pine somewhere inside it. Why is painted pine cheaper than solid hardwood? Because the money goes where it does work. A painted frame does not need the grain of an expensive board, so the budget moves to the parts you see and touch. That is the trade behind most of the price gap between ranges. Related Posts Solid Wood vs Veneer vs MDF: Which Furniture Is Best for You? Six Centimetres Narrower: the Bristol Collection in a Small Bedroom Thirty-One Acacia Pieces, and the Timber Only Shows on Twenty-Three Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
Put the Cedora bedroom ranges in a row and the confusion is understandable. Five of them sell the same list: a bed frame, a two drawer bedside, a five drawer tallboy, a six drawer chest and a mirror. Four of the five are white, and every one of them is 45cm deep in the case pieces and 140cm wide in the chest. On a product grid, four of them are versions of the same photograph. The fifth, Liverpool, is the one that looks different and is built to the same grid underneath. Three numbers decide the whole thing: what the headboard is made of, how much fits in the drawers, and how much floor the bed takes. Everything else is preference. Key Takeaways Five bedroom ranges, not four. Liverpool is the one in bare timber rather than paint. Headboards differ completely: panelled, slatted or upholstered. Only London and Manchester offer beds with drawers, and they sit in the footboard. Liverpool has the largest drawer interiors, Newcastle the smallest, in identical cabinets. Bristol's queen frame is the narrowest at 162.4cm; Liverpool's is the widest at 171cm. Start With the Headboard, Because It Is All You See From the Door This is the only difference visible from three metres away, and it is the one people notice for years. London and Manchester both use a panelled timber headboard, 120cm tall, with moulded edges and a plinth base. It is the Hamptons answer: formal, symmetrical, and it makes a bed look like a piece of architecture rather than a mattress on legs. Bristol uses a slatted headboard instead. Vertical timber slats with air between them, which reads as Scandinavian and, more usefully, does not visually block the wall behind it. In a small room or a room with a window near the bedhead, that transparency is worth more than it sounds. Two ranges upholster. Newcastle sets a fabric panel inside a curved painted surround at 123.5cm, and the Liverpool Pine Queen Bed Frame - Natural sets one inside a bare timber frame at 125cm and repeats it at the foot of the bed. Those are the two you can lean back against for an hour, which matters if the bed doubles as the place you read or work. Range Headboard Height Style London Panelled timber 120cm Classic Hamptons Manchester Panelled timber 120cm Classic Hamptons Bristol Slatted timber 120cm Scandinavian Newcastle Upholstered fabric, painted frame 123.5cm French Provincial Liverpool Upholstered fabric, timber frame 125cm Contemporary Scandinavian Liverpool Pine Queen Bed Frame - Natural Then Ask Whether You Want Drawers in the Bed This cuts the field to two immediately. Only London and Manchester offer a bed with storage, in all three sizes, and in both cases the two drawers sit in the footboard and pull out toward the end of the bed rather than along the sides. That detail is the reason they work in Australian bedrooms at all. A side-opening drawer needs a clear run of floor beside the bed, which most rooms with a robe on one wall simply do not have. A footboard drawer needs the walkway at the end, which every room has. London's drawers are 43.7cm deep and 24.9cm high inside, Manchester's 43cm and 25.9cm. Bristol, Newcastle and Liverpool are plain frames only. That is not a gap so much as a different plan: Bristol's base sits 30cm off the floor and leaves the whole area underneath open, which takes storage boxes on castors that can be pulled from whichever side is actually free. If you rearrange rooms, that flexibility beats a fixed drawer. Manchester Pine Queen Bed Frame with 2 Drawers [products-of-collection collection="hamptons-bedroom-furniture" heading="Beds With Footboard Storage" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-bed4-1"] Then Measure Your Floor, Not Your Mattress A queen mattress is 153cm wide in every one of these beds. What changes is the frame around it, and the spread is wider than you would expect. Bristol's queen is 162.4cm, Newcastle's 164cm, London and Manchester 169cm, Liverpool 171cm. That is 8.6cm between the narrowest and the widest for exactly the same sleeping surface. In a large main bedroom the difference is invisible. In a three by three and a half metre second bedroom, which describes an enormous share of Australian housing, nearly nine centimetres is the gap between walking past the end of the bed and turning sideways to do it. Measure the floor and work backwards. Liverpool is also the longest at 224cm, another 5cm over Bristol. The tallboys run the other way. Liverpool's is 100cm tall, Bristol's 110cm, Manchester's and Newcastle's 114cm, London's 120cm, all on the same 100 x 45cm footprint. A lower tallboy keeps the sense of height in a small room and gives you a surface you can actually see the top of. Range Queen frame Tallboy height Bed with drawers Bristol 162.4 x 215.5cm 110cm No Newcastle 164 x 219cm 114cm No Manchester 169 x 219cm 114cm Yes London 169 x 218.1cm 120cm Yes Liverpool 171 x 224cm 100cm No The Drawer Volume Nobody Thinks to Compare Every one of these ranges sells a six drawer chest measuring exactly W140 x D45 x H85cm. Identical outside. Inside, the drawers vary by more than half in volume, and nothing on the shelf tells you which is which. Liverpool's chest drawers are 63.1cm wide, 36.9cm deep and 24.6cm high. Newcastle's are 62.35 x 37.8 x 16cm. That 8.6cm of height is the difference between a stack of folded jumpers sitting flat and the same stack stopping the drawer from closing. The reason is styling: Newcastle's shaped fronts and curved carcass take their volume from the inside, while Liverpool's flat fronts give it all back. The bedside tables tell the same story in miniature. Liverpool's drawers are 46.4 x 36.9 x 22.5cm, Bristol's 42.5 x 37 x 19.2cm, Newcastle's 42.6 x 34.7 x 15.1cm. If storage is genuinely why you are buying, this is the table to read rather than the price list. Range Chest drawer (W x D x H) Bedside drawer Tallboy lower drawer Liverpool 63.1 x 36.9 x 24.6cm 46.4 x 36.9 x 22.5cm 86.4cm wide, 22.5cm high Bristol 62.5 x 37 x 20.3cm 42.5 x 37 x 19.2cm 87.5cm wide, 20.8cm high Manchester 59 x 37 x 20.6cm 37.5 x 37 x 18.6cm 81.5cm wide, 22.5cm high London 59 x 38.3 x 19.1cm 35.5 x 38.3 x 17.5cm 80.5cm wide, 22.5cm high Newcastle 62.35 x 37.8 x 16cm 42.6 x 34.7 x 15.1cm 87.6cm wide, 18.5cm high Bristol Pine 6 Drawer Chest What They Are Actually Made Of All five use pine structurally, and they differ entirely in how much of any timber you get to see. London and Manchester are a solid pine structure finished in crisp white, top to bottom. There is no exposed grain anywhere in either range. Bristol splits the difference: a solid oak top on a painted pine carcass, so every horizontal surface you put something on is hardwood and everything else is paint. Newcastle lists a pine and acacia structure with a solid acacia headboard frame, all painted, with the fabric panel over the headboard. The acacia is real and you will never see it. Liverpool is the one that is not painted at all: a pine frame carrying a genuine oak veneer, in a natural oak tone or black. It is the only range here where the timber is the finish rather than something underneath it, which is also why it is the one that does not disappear into a white room. The Shortlist, One Paragraph Each Buy Bristol if the room is small and painted furniture suits it. Narrowest bed, lowest of the painted tallboys, roomiest drawers of the four white ranges, and an oak top where you actually put things. Buy London or Manchester if you want a bed that looks like a proper piece of furniture and you need storage in it. They are close enough that the honest tiebreakers are price and small drawer differences. Manchester sits slightly cheaper across most pieces. Buy Newcastle if you want the curves and the upholstered headboard in a painted frame, and the room has the height and light to carry them. Go in knowing the drawers are the shallowest of the five. Buy Liverpool if you want visible timber rather than paint, the largest drawers of any range here, and a fabric headboard without the Provincial styling. It is the widest bed at 171cm and the lowest tallboy at 100cm, so it wants width more than it wants height. [products-of-collection collection="bedroom" heading="All Cedora Bedroom Furniture" limit="8" columns="4" columns_mobile="2" section_id="blog-bed4-2"] Frequently Asked Questions Which Cedora bedroom range has the largest drawers? Liverpool. Its chest drawers are 63.1cm wide, 36.9cm deep and 24.6cm high inside, and its bedside drawers 22.5cm high. Bristol leads the four painted ranges at 20.3cm, and Newcastle has the smallest at 16cm, all in chests of identical external size. Which Cedora bed frames come with storage drawers? Only London and Manchester. Both offer double, queen and king with or without two drawers built into the footboard. Bristol, Newcastle and Liverpool are sold as plain frames. Which Cedora bedroom beds have an upholstered headboard? Newcastle and Liverpool. Newcastle sets a fabric panel inside a curved painted surround at 123.5cm. Liverpool sets one inside a bare timber frame at 125cm and repeats it on the footboard. London and Manchester are panelled timber, Bristol is slatted. Which range suits a small bedroom? Bristol. Its queen frame is 162.4cm wide against 169cm for London and Manchester and 171cm for Liverpool, and its tallboy is 110cm. Liverpool's tallboy is lower again at 100cm, so in a room where height is the problem rather than width, that is the one to look at. Are all five ranges the same material? No. London and Manchester are a solid pine structure, painted. Bristol is a solid oak top on a painted pine carcass. Newcastle is pine and acacia, painted. Liverpool is a pine frame with an oak veneer and is the only one not painted at all. Related Posts Six Centimetres Narrower: the Bristol Collection in a Small Bedroom Two Cedora Beds Have a Fabric Headboard. Only Newcastle Paints the Frame. Fifteen Drawers in One Bedroom: How the Manchester Collection Adds Up Stay in the loop Get styling ideas and early access to new arrivals, straight to your inbox.
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