Small and efficient bedroom design is a major interior trend, driven by urban living and minimalist aesthetics. With less physical space, where can you possibly store all your clothes, shoes, bedding, and everything else? This is where ottoman beds are the perfect solution as the space-saving secret weapon of the modern bedroom.
Maximising storage in small spaces
An ottoman bed is a box on legs with a comfortable mattress. The critical difference lies underneath, where gas-lift hydraulics let you lift the mattress platform, revealing a hollow storage area where you can neatly organise bedding, clothing, shoes, seasonal wardrobe boxes, and everything else.
With more possessions than ever in the era of convenient online shopping, storage space is at a premium, especially in compact urban homes. Ottoman beds provide a place to keep everything tidy and out of sight, and you can use almost the entire underside of the bed, gaining far more capacity than typical drawers.
Enhancing floor space
An appealing advantage of ottoman beds is the increase in usable floor space they allow. With no protruding legs or side panels sticking out, ottoman beds occupy just the footprint of the mattress itself (give or take the headboard thickness).
Additionally, many ottoman bed models are deliberately designed with low-profile headboards to minimise the length. The mattress platform base tends to have a thinner profile as well, allowing sizable mattresses like a king and super king to have smaller floor space requirements than standard double beds.
Pictured: Sweet Dreams Ottowa 4FT 6 Double Fabric Headboard. Available from Bedstar. Priced £449.
This floor space optimisation is invaluable for anyone challenged by limited bedroom dimensions. More of your square footage stays open and unencumbered. You can use the extra capacity for wider walkways, additional furniture like armchairs or chaise lounges, and more extensive decorative floor coverings.
Reducing bulky furniture
The storage inside an ottoman bed can eliminate the need for free-standing bedroom furniture pieces like chests of drawers. Not only does this promote an airy, streamlined interior design scheme by removing space-hogging pieces, but it also allows for additional surface area in the room.
Interior designers use ottoman beds to free up floor space and reduce the footprint of desks, drawers, and wardrobes thanks to that enormous storage compartment.
Improving bedroom layouts
You can get ottoman beds with a foot or side-opening platform. A foot-opening ottoman allows for open flow at the foot of the bed, which can complement interior design aesthetics with less visual impediment. A side opening configuration neatly tucks the bed frame against the wall, which promotes a tidy, organised aesthetic.
For small bedrooms, side-opening ottomans prevent the entry path and central floor area from becoming obstructed when opening the bed.
Considering lifestyle needs and how each opening style harmonises with or elevates the desired interior design scheme will lead to choosing the ottoman configuration that best flatters and utilises the available square footage.
Upholstery and customisation options
The visible parts of an ottoman bed frame lend themselves beautifully to creative choices of fabric and colours. Velvet is a popular ottoman bed material for its rich, elegant look. But you can also choose hard-wearing cotton or faux leather in diverse textures and patterns.
Pictured: Aspire Chesterfield Ottoman Bed Frame. Available from Bedstar. Priced £449.
Contrast stitching can accentuate geometric shapes on the base and headboard. Furthermore, headboards simply slot into the bed frame, letting you swap designs anytime to match the new decor and keep your ottoman bed feeling fresh for years.
Enabling minimalist interior design
Ottoman beds embody minimalism with their clean, sharp lines and expansive concealed storage. Combined with interchangeable upholstery and headboards, ottoman beds provide the ideal base for minimalist bedrooms.
But minimalist style is only one option. An ottoman bed merges with industrial, bohemian, traditional, Art Deco, vintage, farmhouse, and other interior motifs.
The customisation through fabric and headboards means an ottoman bed readily shifts style along with your tastes. As a versatile foundation piece, ottoman beds enable whatever interior design you want to create.