The Chartwell Upholstered Bed: A Quiet Frame in Five Sizes

There is a type of bedroom that goes wrong by adding things: a deep-buttoned headboard, a mirrored chest, a chrome lamp. The Chartwell is the bed for the other approach. It is an upholstered frame with no storage in the base, and its only gesture is a smooth unbroken headboard with a gently swept top edge that rises at the corners.

The Chartwell upholstered bed is made to order in five sizes and 29 colourways, with the headboard, the side rails and the foot end all finished in the same cloth.

Frame, not divan, and why that changes the room

The mattress sits down inside an upholstered surround rather than on top of a box base. Three practical effects follow. The sleeping surface sits lower, which reads as calmer in a room with a low window line. The sides of the bed are visible and upholstered, so the cloth you pick is doing more work than on a divan with a valance. And there is no storage underneath, which is the honest trade for those lines.

If storage is what you actually need, the same headboard is available on a lift-up version, and the two are worth putting side by side before deciding.

Five sizes, measured finished

• Single 3FT: 96.5 cm wide by 205.7 cm long
• Small Double 4FT: 127 cm wide by 205.7 cm long
• Double 4FT6: 142 cm wide by 205.7 cm long
• King 5FT: 157 cm wide by 215 cm long
• Super King 6FT: 187 cm wide by 215 cm long

These are the finished bed at its widest point, not the mattress. The jump from a 4FT6 double to a king is 15 cm of width and nearly 10 cm of length, and the upholstered surround is why: it adds to every edge. Plan a walkway of a comfortable stride down at least one side, and check the doorway and the stairs before the floor plan convinces you.

The product page carries a size guide with the bed drawn from the side and from above, all five sizes to the same scale.

Choosing from 29 colourways

The cloths are Coniston, Naples, Chenille, Boucle, Plush Velvet and Linoso, and they behave differently in a bedroom. Plush Velvet shifts shade as the light moves across it and reads richest in Emerald, Mocca or Steel. Boucle in Cream, Granite or Mink has a texture that photographs flatter than it looks in person. The Coniston and Naples ranges are the plainest, which is usually the right answer in a room where the bed is the biggest object. Ask us if two shades are close and you cannot separate them on a screen.

Mattress, delivery and seeing it

Mattresses are sold separately so that the tension is a separate decision from the frame. That is deliberate: the frame will outlast a mattress, and pairing them at the till rarely gets both right.

We sell beds in Glasgow from our own store and send beds in Scotland and across the country, with delivery free within 50 miles of the store and £50 beyond it. If you are comparing shapes, the upholstered bed range shows the other headboards in the same cloths, and the Chartwell's own page has the size guide and every colourway.