The Delamere Ottoman: Full-Footprint Storage Without a Divan Box

Most storage beds ask you to accept something: a drawer that will not open because the bed sits against a wall, or a base box that looks like a box. The Delamere upholstered ottoman bed avoids both. The mattress platform lifts on gas struts to open the entire area underneath as one lined compartment, and because the bed is built as an upholstered frame rather than a divan box, the sides are shaped and finished in cloth so the storage is invisible when it is shut.

One compartment beats four drawers

A drawer can only ever reach the slice of floor it slides over, and it needs that much clear space in the room to open. A lifting platform uses the whole footprint, so it swallows the awkward things: a travel cot, a folded airer, winter duvets, the suitcase that otherwise lives on top of a wardrobe. Gas struts carry the weight of the mattress, so opening it is a lift rather than a fight, and nothing has to clear a wardrobe door or a radiator.

The one thing to check before ordering is headroom above the bed. The platform swings up, so a sloping ceiling, a low window sill or a shelf directly above the pillows can get in the way. Stand where the bed will go and put your hand up to roughly mattress height plus the length of the platform. If you are unsure, ask us rather than guessing, because the amount of swing depends on the size you choose.

The Delamere headboard

The headboard is a set of narrow vertical channels running the full height of the board, held between two wings that angle forward towards the pillows. It is upholstered in the same cloth as the base and the sides, so the finished bed reads as one piece instead of a frame and a board that almost agree with each other. The channels add height to the wall behind the bed, and the wings put something soft where your shoulders go.

Five sizes, finished dimensions

• Single 3FT: 104 cm wide, 212 cm long
• Small Double 4FT: 132 cm wide, 212 cm long
• Double 4FT6: 149 cm wide, 212 cm long
• King 5FT: 164 cm wide, 222 cm long
• Super King 6FT: 194 cm wide, 222 cm long

Those figures are the bed as it ends up in your room, taken at the widest point, and they are larger than the mattress that goes in them. The upholstered surround is what accounts for the difference. The product page has a size guide drawing the bed from the side and from above, with every size to one scale, so you can see what moving from a 4FT6 to a 5FT actually takes off the floor.

Leave a walking gap as well. At 194 cm wide, a super king takes up most of the width of an average bedroom before you have added a bedside table on either side.

Twenty-six colourways

The Delamere ottoman is upholstered to order in any of 26 colourways, and every part finished in cloth is done in the fabric you pick. The ranges cover plush velvets, chenilles and flat weaves: Emerald and Blue if you want the bed to be the colour in the room, Almond, Cream and Silver if you want it to recede, Charcoal and Black if the walls are doing the talking. Velvet catches light and shows its pile direction, so it changes character as you walk round it. A swatch under your own lamps settles it far better than a photograph does.

Ordering, delivery and the mattress

Mattresses are sold separately so you can match the tension to the sleeper rather than take what a set gives you. One note specific to ottoman beds: the mattress lives on a lifting platform, so a very heavy mattress makes the lid heavier to raise. If you are shopping for the firmest thing you can find, mention it and we will talk it through.

Delivery is free within 50 miles of our Glasgow store and £50 beyond it, so if you are looking at beds in Glasgow the delivery line is nothing, and anyone further afield sees the charge before they commit. Every Delamere is handmade to order in the cloth and size you choose, which is why the configurator on the Delamere ottoman page is worth going through slowly. For the rest of the lifting-base range, including other headboard styles on the same base, see our upholstered ottoman beds.