Sleeping Beauty

July 28, 2003 12:02 PM

For $40,000 your little princess can sleep in Cinderella's Carriage. At that price it better come with a team of white horses. Next to that, the Fairytale Cottage for $5,000 seems like a steal! Or with all the pirate mania... maybe they'd like this pirate's ship for a mere $25,000? Low on funds? This paupers pirate-themed ones is just $4,000. Not into all the European legend junk? Or maybe a tee pee for $3,066? Or a vintage race car for $25,000. And there's even more if you want to torture yourself for being a moneyless loser.
posted by Dome-O-Rama (21 comments total)

I bet I could construct something quite similar (if I had a child and wanted to) for a tiny fraction of those prices, and that the kid would be just as happy with it. Actually the site doesn't make me feel like a "moneyless loser" at all. If I were looking to decorate a child's room I'd be more likely to look at it as a goldmine of amazing ideas.
posted by orange swan at 12:09 PM on July 28, 2003

The sailing-ship bed is wicked cool. Oh, how I wish that I was wealthy beyond the conception of 95% of the planet's population!
posted by Marquis at 12:13 PM on July 28, 2003

Being a moneyless loser is torture enough on it's own thanks very much. Still, on the positive side, I don't have to put up with any snivelling brats demanding poncy beds.
posted by squealy at 12:28 PM on July 28, 2003

And how does one make the bed inside the pumpkin coach? Not that practical, though the idea is rather fun.
posted by SealWyf at 12:38 PM on July 28, 2003

"And how does one make the bed inside the pumpkin coach?"

One has one's servant attend to that, of course.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:39 PM on July 28, 2003

The prices do seem extremely ridiculous to me, but I wonder if it's all just relative... For a person with a $10million+ home, it might just be like buying something like this to a person with a $200k home.
posted by bk at 12:41 PM on July 28, 2003

When posh tots grow up, they can get a bed like Missy Elliott's Ferrari: "Missy's bed is made by Ferrari and it is, in fact, a Ferrari body. This has got to be one of the most pimped out beds to date on Cribs. The hood folds back into a giant TV screen and the trunk holds all of Missy's shoes." [picture #152 under the Missy Elliott link]
posted by Frank Grimes at 12:42 PM on July 28, 2003

That's what I keep forgetting! Now where does one find one's servant?

Ah well... My son will just have to make do with the hand-me-down furniture he's got. It's in great condition and fit perfectly in my budget.
posted by onhazier at 12:45 PM on July 28, 2003

See, now why would you kill yourself over this stuff when it's clearly possible to get a whole fantastic kid's room for under $1000 a la Trading Spaces . (Scroll down, click on "Verns Room" under the heading Long Island, Dover Court)
posted by synapse at 12:57 PM on July 28, 2003

anyone who has $25k they can afford to spend on a child's bed who doesn't send it straight to amnesty int'l (or whatever) is an asshole.
posted by mdn at 1:02 PM on July 28, 2003

meh. for that much money I'd want my bed to be an X-Wing, complete with closing canopy.

Or Voltron.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:08 PM on July 28, 2003

And watch your daughter grow up to be a well-balanced adult.
posted by the fire you left me at 1:11 PM on July 28, 2003

Wait, wasn't Cinderella supposed to be poor? Wasn't that the whole point? That a poor girl could get laid too?
posted by zekinskia at 1:31 PM on July 28, 2003

zekinskia: I don't know why, but that struck me as incredibly funny, best laugh I've had all day, thanks!
posted by Grod at 1:37 PM on July 28, 2003

Err, at $15,492.50 for a toy Land Rover, why not save a couple hundred bucks and just get the little bastards the real thing to play with?
posted by kickingtheground at 1:53 PM on July 28, 2003

"Moneyless loser"? I couldn't help but laugh at that.

I agree with orange swan - I'd rather make something similar, at a fraction of the cost, for my kid (if indeed I was inclined to do so.) Problem is, what do you do with it when the kid grows out of it in a few short years? What's cool at 5 sucks at 10...

Imagine the teenager stuck with this bed because his parents shelled out $18K for it!
posted by FormlessOne at 2:03 PM on July 28, 2003

You know, as a kid, a refridgerator box and handful of crayons was all I needed to create my own spaceship or fort or whatever I was into that week. And I thought it was the damned coolest thing ever, too, because I made it and could get a "new" one whenever I asked. God bless my parents for being "cheap".
posted by Sangre Azul at 2:29 PM on July 28, 2003

I dunno, I would have though the Cindy Carriage was cool when I was 5 or 6...but 40K...for a bed? That seems to be taking consumerism a tad over the top.

bk...thanks for that link.

SangreAzul...right on.
posted by dejah420 at 3:09 PM on July 28, 2003

nah dude, Cinderella wasn't poor -- she was forced into servitude by her ultrabitch stepmother who stole her inheritance

i think the point of the story has something to do with talking mice and small feet

and let me tell you, my daughter LOVED the pics of that bed. though happily, she liked one of the cheaper models better.

personally, I'll take the Cthulhu Impossible Geometry Playset, anyday
posted by badzen at 6:42 PM on July 28, 2003

If your little girl really wants to be Cinderella, you could tell her to go sleep in the cinders near the fireplace...

I've been musing on how subjective child-rearing expenses can be - or any expenses, of course. If I had a child I might spend a thousand or two fixing up her room (plain, good quality furnishings she can use as a teenager, a fairy-tale themed mural on the wall that I could paint over later, a fancy canopy rigged up with fabric and plywood). But a mother on welfare might be pretty angry about that and react much like people have here - the kid will be spoiled, the money should have gone to charity etc. A third-world mother might be outraged over this - a few thousand would mean being able to feed and raise her several children rather than have them all starve to death. They'd be right, in a way. And I could counter that by saying that's reasonable in the light of my circumstances, that it doesn't mean my child will be spoiled, that I already support a third-world child and give money to charities. And I'd be right, too.

So.. if I were worth a few hundred million, if I already gave away a million or two to charity every year, if I expected my child to behave considerately of others and eat all her vegetables, mightn't I make the same sort of choice in decorating her room? Isn't it a matter of scale? It's the far end of the scale, and I actually do hope I never get to the point where I'd spend that kind of money on that sort of thing, but is it that out of line for someone who has that much money to spend it on equally expensive items?
posted by orange swan at 10:03 AM on July 29, 2003

So.. if I were worth a few hundred million, if I already gave away a million or two to charity every year, if I expected my child to behave considerately of others and eat all her vegetables, mightn't I make the same sort of choice in decorating her room?

In my opinion, if you were worth a few hundred million, you should be giving away pretty close to a few hundred million in charity. Sure, live comfortably, have a million dollar house, make sure you can cover the costs of good education and insurance and even nice vacations for your kids, but a few million should keep everyone in your household pretty happy and there's absolutely no way to defend a $40k bed when others are struggling to eat.

I agree that it's relative and I'm not suggesting that everyone is ethically obliged to give away any money over a living wage, but when you're buying toys that cost more than most people's yearly income, or ruby encrusted cell phones, or whatever, there's just something wrong with that.
posted by mdn at 4:42 PM on July 30, 2003