Full-Height Channelling and a Base That Opens: The Osterley Ottoman Divan Bed

The Osterley headboard is close-set vertical channels running the full height of the board, framed by a plain border with an upright post standing at each side. It is a tailored, upright design rather than a soft one, and because the board is upholstered in the same cloth as the base and the sides, the Osterley ottoman divan bed arrives as one piece rather than a base and a board that nearly match.

The base is the whole point

Everything under the mattress is storage. The entire base lifts: gas struts take the mattress weight and the top swings up from the side, opening the full footprint of the bed as a single lined compartment. There are no drawers and no runners, which means nothing has to clear a wall, a radiator or a wardrobe door before you can get into it, and the storage stays usable even with the bed pushed into a corner.

That is the structural difference between a lifting base and the drawer divan beds most people picture when they think of storage. A drawer needs floor space in front of it; a lifting base needs air above it. In a bedroom where the furniture is already fighting for floor, that one fact decides which bed you should buy. It also means the compartment takes long and bulky things rather than only folded ones.

Six sizes

Measured across the finished bed at its widest point:

• Small Single 2FT6: 75 cm wide by 191.5 cm long
• Single 3FT: 90 cm wide by 191.5 cm long
• Small Double 4FT: 120 cm wide by 191.5 cm long
• Double 4FT6: 135 cm wide by 191.5 cm long
• King 5FT: 150 cm wide by 200 cm long
• Super King 6FT: 184 cm wide by 200 cm long

The four smaller sizes share a length of 191.5 cm; the king and super king are 200 cm. If your room is tight at the foot of the bed, that 8.5 cm is the thing that catches people moving up from a double. The product page carries a full size guide with the bed drawn from the side and from above and every size at the same scale, which is a better way to judge it than reading a table.

Before you order

Three checks. The floor area against the figures above, allowing a path on the side you get out of. The height above the mattress, because a lifting top needs room to travel and a sloping ceiling, a low sill or a wall light will stop it short. And the way in, since the base sections and the headboard panel are large and the panel will not bend round a tight turn. Measure the narrowest point of the stairs and tell us if it looks difficult; it is a far easier conversation before the bed is built than on the doorstep.

Twenty-six colourways, applied throughout

The Osterley is upholstered to order in any of twenty-six colourways, and every part finished in cloth is done in the fabric you pick. The range runs across plush velvets, chenilles, the Coniston and Naples weaves and a Silver Linoso, with colours from Cream and Almond through Mink, Mocca and Armour to Emerald, Blue, Pink, Mauve, Seal Grey, Slate Grey, Silver, Charcoal and Black.

Full-height channelling reads very differently between a pile and a flat weave. In a plush velvet the channels become bands of light and the headboard dominates; in Coniston or a chenille the same board is architectural and quiet. We will send fabric samples so you can see which one your room wants, rather than deciding from a photograph lit by somebody else.

Headboard and mattress

The headboard offered is the 54-inch floor standing type, which stands on the floor behind the base. Mattresses are sold separately, so you pair the Osterley with whichever tension suits you instead of taking one that came with it.

Delivery

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 changes with the distance.

The specification, the fabrics and the size drawings all sit on the Osterley's product page. To compare headboards over the identical lifting base, the ottoman divan beds range is the place to do it.