Amberley Kids Upholstered Bed: picking a size a child will not outgrow

The Amberley Kids Upholstered Bed is an upholstered frame worked to a child's scale. Its headboard is a run of vertical channels held inside a shaped outer frame, and the top edge of that frame steps in at the shoulders rather than finishing square. It is the detail that stops the bed looking like a shrunken adult one, and it is why this sits in our kids upholstered beds rather than the main range.

Three sizes, and the case for going bigger

• Single 3FT – 109 cm wide by 212 cm long
• Small Double 4FT – 139 cm wide by 212 cm long
• Double 4FT6 – 155 cm wide by 212 cm long

Notice that the length does not change: every size is 212 cm long, so the decision is purely about width and the length question is settled for you. That is useful, because it means a single today and a small double in a few years occupy exactly the same stretch of wall.

Parents usually arrive looking for a single and leave thinking about the small double. The reason is simple. A child grows, friends stay over, and a teenager reading in bed wants room for a laptop and a mug. If the floor can take 139 cm rather than 109 cm, the extra 30 cm buys several years. Mark both widths on the carpet and see what it does to the walking space round the door and the wardrobe.

The mattress sits inside a surround

This is a bed frame, not a divan base. The mattress drops down inside an upholstered surround, with the side rails and the foot end finished in the same cloth as the headboard, so the whole bed arrives as one piece instead of a frame and a board that nearly match. The figures above are the finished bed at its widest point, which is what you measure against the room; the mattress itself sits inside them.

Twenty-six colourways in a room that will change

The Amberley is upholstered to order in any of 26 colourways, and every part finished in cloth is done in the one you choose. For a child's room that is worth thinking about twice. Pink Plush Velvet or Blue Coniston answers a seven-year-old perfectly; Silver Chenille, Charcoal Coniston or Almond Coniston will still look right when the posters come down and the room becomes a study. The channelled headboard reads quite differently in a flat weave than in a plush velvet, where the light catches each channel. Ask us for a sample if you are deciding between two.

There is no storage under this one

The Amberley frame keeps its base clear, which suits a room where a toy box, drawers or a chest already do that job. If the floor is the problem rather than the look, the matching ottoman version lifts the whole platform and opens the area beneath as one lined compartment, and the kids ottoman bed page covers it. Storage is the one decision that cannot be revisited once the bed is built, so make it now.

Delivery, and the mattress

Delivery is free within 50 miles of our Glasgow store and £50 beyond that, which covers most families shopping for beds in Glasgow and the towns around it. Mattresses are sold separately, which for a child's bed is genuinely useful: you can choose a firmer tension than you would pick for yourself without being stuck with whatever came bundled. The full specification, the size guide drawings and every cloth are on the Amberley Kids Upholstered Bed page, and you are welcome to send us the room measurements if the single-or-small-double question is still open.