A Child's Bed That Is Not Decorated Like One: The Oakley Kids Upholstered Bed

Children's beds tend to be designed for the age the child is now, which is why so many of them are replaced long before they wear out. The Oakley kids upholstered bed takes the opposite approach. It is an upholstered frame built to a child's scale, with a headboard of narrow vertical channels set inside a plain flat surround and the side rail fluted to match. There is nothing on it that dates, and nothing printed on it that a twelve year old will want gone.

A frame, not a divan

This is the distinction worth understanding before you choose. On a divan, the mattress sits on top of a solid upholstered box. On the Oakley the mattress sits down inside an upholstered surround, with the side rails and foot end finished in the same cloth as the headboard. There is no storage in the base.

For a child's room that is often the right trade. The lines stay low, which makes getting in and out easier for a smaller child, and a frame has no drawer fronts to be kicked, stood on or pulled out and left open across the floor. If storage is the thing you cannot do without, the same headboard is available on a lifting base, and our divan beds with drawers are worth a look as well; but a frame is the simpler object, and in a small room simplicity usually wins.

The three sizes

These are the finished bed at its widest point, which includes the upholstered surround and is therefore larger than the mattress it holds:

• Single 3FT: 99 cm wide by 212 cm long
• Small Double 4FT: 127 cm wide by 212 cm long
• Double 4FT6: 144 cm wide by 212 cm long

The length is the figure to look at twice. All three sizes are 212 cm long, because the surround adds material at the head and at the foot, so the bed is longer than the mattress inside it. Children's rooms are frequently the smallest in the house, and an alcove that just took a plain divan base will not necessarily take this. Measure the length of your wall before the width.

The product page carries a full size guide with the bed drawn from the side and from above, every size shown to the same scale, so you can see where the bulk sits rather than reading numbers in a list.

Choosing the size for a child, not for now

A 3FT single is the conventional choice and the one that leaves the most floor for everything else a child's room has to hold. A 4FT small double is the quiet upgrade people are glad of later: it is only 28 cm wider than a single, it reads as a grown-up bed, and it means a teenager does not need a new one. A 4FT6 double in a child's room is a decision about the room rather than the child, and at 144 cm wide it will dominate most of them.

Twenty-six cloths, and what survives a child

The Oakley is upholstered to order in any of twenty-six colourways, and every part finished in cloth is done in the fabric you pick. The choice runs across plush velvets, chenilles, the Coniston and Naples weaves and a Silver Linoso, in colours from Cream and Almond through Pink, Blue and Emerald to Charcoal and Black.

Two practical notes. Fluted channels collect more than a flat panel does, so a mid tone hides daily life better than Cream or Black, which show lint and marks respectively. And if your child is at the age where felt tip pens travel, a patterned weave forgives a great deal more than a smooth velvet. We cannot tell you how a given cloth will behave against a specific stain, so if hard wearing is the priority, ask us for samples and test them yourself before you order.

Mattress and delivery

Mattresses are sold separately, which is deliberate rather than mean: a child's tension is not an adult's, and buying the two apart means you choose rather than accept. The bed is handmade to order in your chosen cloth, so the headboard, the rails and the foot end arrive as one piece rather than a frame and a board that nearly match.

Delivery is free within 50 miles of our Glasgow store and £50 beyond it, so beds in Scotland outside that radius carry one flat charge rather than a figure that climbs with the mileage.

Read the full specification and see the size drawings on the Oakley's product page, or browse the other headboard styles in our kids upholstered beds range to see what else is built to the same scale.