During the 19th century most peasants had beds in their rural houses. In the construction of a bed it was particularly important that it was easy to take apart. In rural houses, beds for a single person were often used, with headboard and footboard. Beds that were known as postelje or postelj were beds made with simple workmanship, of just a few boards, like a crate, with four legs and a raised head and footboard. In the houses of richer peasants the bed tended to be ornamented with carving on the sides, during the 19th century. In Baranja beds had headboards, footboards and sides ornamented with paintings of stylised geometrical or floral patterns at the beginning of the 20th century (Antoš 1998: 26).

Since a bed was considered an item of ornamentation in every home, particular attention was paid to placing it in the room, for the ornamented side to be turned to the door, the decorations immediately being seen on entry into the space. It was believed that these ornaments had a magical, apotropaic role for the young couple and their family.

Both riches and poverty were demonstrated in the furnishing of the bed. The feeling of the protection, comfort and warmth of a bed did not derive only from its being able to be, if necessary, closed, but from its being equipped with straw mattress, pillows, quilts and woollen blankets. This furnishing varied from simple to exceptionally rich in the different parts of Croatia. An example of a richly accoutred object comes from Slavonia, which had several rows of pillows that would sometimes touch the ceiling of the room and had to be supported by richly decorated railings. At the side was a bench on which was a cradle or on which a child slept. “If needed a bed would be screened with a curtain for the new mother to be isolated from the other members of the family” (Maglica 2003:193). When it was time for delivery, the other members of the household would leave the room, and if the birth occurred at night, would sleep in the byre. “After the delivery, the mother would for some time continue to sleep in the curtained part of the room, lest the child be attacked by evil forces or darkness” (Muraj 1989: 140). In the 1930s things changed, because there was a separate bedroom, which provided mother and infant privacy and the possibility of being isolated from the other members of the household. A bed was also the last resting place of a deceased member of the family, and it was in the bedroom that the villagers would bid their adieus. The household would take the beds out of the room, and prepare in the centre of the room a bier consisting of two tables and two benches on which they would place the deceased “People would be arriving during the day. At night the dead would be watched over” (Muraj 1989: 160).