The Mibed movement - bringing boutique beds into care homes

Over the last ten years there has been a move in care homes to become increasingly design led, making care home bedrooms more homely to help residents adjust to living in a new environment.

But when designer Maria Dolan went to visit a relative in a care home, she was surprised and saddened to see her family member in a profiling bed that was bright orange and the same in design as beds in nursing homes, hospitals and the majority of other care homes.

What she saw inspired her to create Mibed, a company that customises wooden profiling beds in a range of finishes, fabrics and stains to create beds that move away from clinical furniture and provide a homely feel for residents.

Ms Dolan said: “I went home and decided that I wanted to do something to make patients feel brilliant and to make the beds a real asset to design led images being created in care homes.

“People don’t want to settle, they want to push the boundaries but in care homes there is often mass produced really high volume furniture and people know more or less where they have come from because they all look the same. What we are going to do is get those bed frames and make them more boutique with hotel standard finishings.

“There are 1000s of beds coming in by cargo and loads going out to care homes which was ‘fine for now’ but ‘now’ it is changing. People are living longer and will be living in a provision longer so they want better to live in a looking, luxury design led environment and having one of these designed beds is such a simple thing to achieve this.

“Care homes have been pushing for cheapness as all providers are restricted by budgets so they wanted to go with manufacturers which covered the basics, for example ensuring beds had fully working motors. They were buying the bed and doing their job but no thought had gone into how a person might feel living in the hospital style bed. People are expecting more than the basics now.”

The team are able to stain and upholster any wooden profiling bed to suit the personal tastes of anyone using the bed to boost the homely feel of care homes and minimise the clinical feel that can be created by standardised profiling beds in impersonal colours such as bright orange and blue.

Ms Dolan feels that residents want more from care homes now than ever before, with person centred care and reminiscence activities becoming necessary parts of what a modern care home offers. Similarly the move to design led furnishings will increase as people want care homes to feel more homely to help residents adjust to living in a new environment. Mibed can create beds to look as similar to a person’s old bed as possible and adapt colours to suit the design of the rest of a bedroom giving people the power to choose and influence their living environment.

There are 5 colours but also scope for a bespoke service where they can upholster each of the beds separately.

Ms Dolan continued: “It really is a case what whatever you want. I am passionate and excited about visiting them soon as people will be able to see them around and I will not allow anything out of our factory without being top quality.

“We can make them as basic or as bespoke as people would like, it is even possible to upholster gold plated bed with gold plated bed rails if that is their wish!

“We are making beds that will harmonise with interiors that people will want it to be which is domestic.”