Two Cedora Beds Have a Fabric Headboard. Only Newcastle Paints the Frame.

Sitting up in bed is not a design detail, it is most of what people do in a bedroom that is not sleeping. Reading, a laptop on a Sunday morning, waiting out a headache. A timber headboard is a wall behind your shoulders. A fabric one is something you can lean on for an hour without a pillow doing all the work.

Two Cedora ranges are built that way, not one. Newcastle sets a fabric panel inside a curved frame painted white; Liverpool sets one inside bare timber and carries it down to the footboard as well. This is the Newcastle guide, and it starts by being clear about which of the two you actually want.

Key Takeaways

• One of two Cedora ranges with a fabric headboard, and the only one in a painted frame.
• 123.5cm tall on a bedhead just 6.8cm deep, the thinnest frame in the catalogue.
• Liverpool is the other upholstered range, slightly taller at 125cm and fabric at both ends.
• Three plain bed frames in double, queen and king. No drawer version.
• Drawers are the shallowest of any bedroom range, which is what the curves cost.

The Headboard Is Fabric, and That Changes the Room

On the Newcastle Acacia Queen Bed Frame the headboard is a linen-toned upholstered panel held inside a shaped timber surround, painted white, with the curve carried through to the footboard and down into the legs. It reaches 123.5cm from the floor on a frame only 6.8cm deep, which is the thinnest bedhead Cedora builds, so the height costs you almost nothing in floor area.

What it buys is comfort you notice daily, not a feature you point at. Leaning back against fabric is simply better than leaning against a painted board, and the height means the panel supports your shoulders rather than stopping at the small of your back. In a room where the bed is also the reading chair, which describes most Australian bedrooms, that is the difference between using the bed and propping up three pillows every time.

The honest cost is maintenance. Fabric near a north-facing window will fade over years in a way paint will not, and it collects dust that a damp cloth cannot simply lift off. If the bed sits in full afternoon sun with the curtains open, this is not the range for you. If it sits on an internal wall, the concern is theoretical.

Newcastle or Liverpool: Choosing Between the Two Fabric Beds

Since both ranges upholster, the decision is worth making properly rather than by accident. The Liverpool Pine Queen Bed Frame - Natural puts its soft woven fabric panel inside a bare timber frame and repeats it at the foot of the bed, so you get fabric at both ends and visible grain around it. Newcastle keeps fabric at the head only and answers it with a solid curved footboard in paint.

The numbers are close enough to matter. Liverpool stands 125cm at the bedhead on an 8cm frame, Newcastle 123.5cm on 6.8cm. Where they separate properly is storage: the Liverpool bedside drawers are 22.5cm deep inside against 15.1cm in the Newcastle, and the Liverpool chest runs 24.6cm against 16cm, in cabinets of identical external size.

So the honest split is style against capacity. Take Newcastle if you want the painted, curved, Provincial look and the room is where you display things rather than store them. Take Liverpool if the bedroom has to hold a household's clothing and you would rather the timber showed. Both are comfortable to lean on, which was the point of the fabric in the first place.

Three Frames, and What the Curve Adds

The range runs double at W149 x D208cm, queen at W164 x D219cm and king at W194 x D219cm, each 123.5cm tall. All three use a solid slat base, so a mattress goes straight on with no ensemble underneath. There is no version with built-in drawers.

The shaped legs are the detail that decides whether this range works in your room. They splay slightly outward and curve, which is what makes the bed read as French Provincial rather than plain white. They also mean the widest point of the bed is not the mattress line but a few centimetres below it, so if you are planning to slot the frame between a wall and a robe door, measure at floor level rather than at the top.

The footboard is solid and curved, not open and not upholstered. That gives the bed a defined end, which is worth having in a large room where an open-ended bed can look adrift, and worth thinking twice about in a small one where the same solidity closes the space in.

The Case Pieces, and the Tallest Bedside in the Catalogue

The Newcastle Acacia 2 Drawer Bedside Table is W55 x D45 x H64.4cm. That extra four and a half centimetres over the standard 60cm sounds trivial and is not, because the Newcastle bed sits on shaped legs and reads slightly higher than a plinth-based frame. The bedside was drawn to match it. If you are pairing a Newcastle bedside with a different bed, check the mattress height first.

The Newcastle Acacia 5 Drawer Tallboy is W100 x D45 x H114cm with five drawers, two narrow ones at 42.3cm across the top and three at 87.6cm below. The Newcastle Acacia 6 Drawer Chest is W140 x D45 x H85cm with six drawers at 62.35cm wide. Both carry the same curved fronts and shaped legs as the bed, and both sit on the same 45cm depth as every other Cedora case piece, so they line up on a wall with anything else in the catalogue.

Between them, the choice is the usual one. The tallboy takes a metre of wall and goes up. The chest takes 140cm and gives back a usable surface at 85cm, which is where the lamp, the tray and the folded washing end up. In a Provincial room the chest also gives the mirror somewhere to live.

The Drawers Are the Shallowest of Any Bedroom Range

This is the part worth being blunt about, because nothing in a photograph tells you. Newcastle drawer interiors are 15.1cm high in the bedside, 16cm in the chest and 18.5cm in the tallboy. The equivalent Bristol pieces run 19.2cm, 20.3cm and 20.8cm, and the Liverpool bedside and chest run 22.5cm and 24.6cm, all in cabinets with identical external dimensions.

The reason is the styling itself. Shaped drawer fronts, a curved carcass and legs that lift the whole piece off the floor all take their volume from the same place, and that place is the inside of the drawer. It is not a fault. It is the honest arithmetic of buying curves instead of corners.

Whether it matters depends entirely on what you fold. Shirts, t-shirts and folded linen do not care about five centimetres. Bulky winter jumpers and doubled-over denim do, and if that is most of your wardrobe you will be happier with a squarer range. Buy Newcastle for the way it looks and sits, with your eyes open about capacity, and it will not disappoint you later.

The Mirror, and What Makes This Provincial

The Newcastle Acacia Mirror is 100 x 100cm and 5cm deep, with a shaped and moulded painted frame in place of a plain square one. It pairs with the chest, and if you want both in one purchase there is a Newcastle Acacia 6 Drawer Chest with Mirror.

French Provincial as a look is not about any single feature, and it is certainly not about putting a fleur-de-lis on something. It is the combination of a curved silhouette, a painted finish that softens rather than reflects, shaped legs that lift furniture visually off the floor, and moulding that catches light along an edge. Newcastle carries all four across every piece, which is why the range reads as one room rather than a set of matching boxes.

It suits an older Australian house better than a new one. High ceilings, picture rails, a bay window and carpet all flatter curves. A low-ceilinged room with square architraves and polished concrete will fight them, and in that room the Newcastle range looks like furniture that wandered in from a different building.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Cedora beds have an upholstered headboard?

Two ranges. Newcastle sets a fabric panel inside a curved frame painted white, and Liverpool sets one inside a bare timber frame in natural or black. London and Manchester use panelled timber headboards, and Bristol uses a slatted one.

What is the difference between the Newcastle and Liverpool upholstered beds?

Three things. Liverpool upholsters the footboard as well as the headboard, Newcastle only the headboard. Liverpool's frame is bare timber, Newcastle's is painted. Liverpool stands 125cm at the bedhead against Newcastle's 123.5cm.

How tall is the Newcastle bed?

123.5cm from the floor to the top of the headboard, on a frame just 6.8cm deep. That is the thinnest bedhead in the catalogue, so the height costs almost nothing in floor space. Only the Liverpool bed is taller, at 125cm.

What is the Newcastle range made from?

A solid acacia headboard frame with a pine and acacia structure, painted white. The beds use a solid slat base, so no separate bed base is needed under the mattress.

Why are the Newcastle drawers shallower than other ranges?

The shaped fronts and curved legs take their volume from somewhere, and it is the inside of the drawer. The chest drawers are 16cm high against 20.3cm in the Bristol chest and 24.6cm in the Liverpool one, all three in cabinets of identical external size.