13 Jul 2026
Small Bedroom Storage Ideas: Beds That Earn Their Space
The best storage in a small bedroom is space you already own: the floor under the mattress, the gap at the foot of the bed, and the wall behind the headboard. Put those three to work and most small rooms stop feeling short. The order matters, though — measure first, settle the bed size second, and only then decide where the storage goes.
Small bedroom storage ideas start with the tape measure
Nearly every small-bedroom mistake starts in the same place: measuring the bed you imagine instead of the bed you are buying. A bed size describes the mattress, not the object that ends up in the room. Upholstered frames add padding, panelling and sometimes wings on top, so two beds sold as the same size can differ by 20cm or more of floor.
These are the real double-size footprints of four beds we sell, taken from their own specifications:
| Bed | Double footprint | Headboard height |
|---|---|---|
| Luna | 145cm W × 210cm L | 145cm |
| Katie | 145cm W × 210cm L | 145cm |
| Elena Divan | 165cm W × 200cm L | 135cm overall height |
| Suki | 165cm W × 210cm L | 180cm |
Twenty centimetres across the room is the difference between a wardrobe door that opens fully and one that catches on the mattress. Every product page carries its own size table, so check the bed in front of you rather than working from the size name. Note too that on the frames offering it — Luna, Katie and Suki among them — the gas-lift ottoman build measures slightly smaller overall than the standard one, because the base sits flush with the mattress and the headboard runs down flush to the floor.
Leave room to walk, open and make the bed
Before committing to a size, tape the footprint onto the floor and live with it for a day. Then check four things.
- A walking side. Aim for a clear 60–75cm along at least one long side, and on both sides if two people share the room.
- Door swings. Measure the arc of the bedroom door and of every wardrobe door.
- Making the bed. You need somewhere to stand while you tuck a sheet in. A bed pushed hard against two walls looks tidy on a plan and is miserable in practice.
- Storage clearance. A gas-lift ottoman base lifts the whole platform upwards on struts, so you need room to stand and swing it open. A drawer base needs clear pull-out room at the side instead.
Small double or double?
This is the decision that saves the most floor. A small double sits between a single and a double, and dropping down is worth doing whenever the narrower bed buys something real — a usable walkway, a wardrobe door that clears, a chest of drawers that fits.
The difference is easy to see in our children's range, where every bed is made in both sizes to the same overall length:
| Size | Footprint (children's range) |
|---|---|
| Single | 105cm W × 205cm L |
| Small double | 130cm W × 205cm L |
Across the wider range we sell Small Single, Single, Small Double, Double, King, Super King, Emperor and Three Quarter, though not every bed is offered in every size — the configurator on each product page shows what that design is made in.
Put the storage under the bed
A bed takes the largest single piece of floor in the room, and on most beds that volume is wasted. Gas-lift ottoman storage recovers it: the whole platform lifts on struts to open the full footprint underneath — where spare bedding, cases and out-of-season clothes should live when the wardrobe is small.
Several of our frames offer it, including Luna, Katie, Lena and Suki. Ordered that way they are built on a solid base made in two halves rather than on slats — a continuous surface under the mattress and a stronger compartment beneath it. Katie is the plainest of them and probably the most useful in a tight room: a simple upholstered frame as standard, and with the ottoman option, the largest cupboard in the house. You can browse the full range of upholstered bed frames and check the storage option on each.
If you would rather have drawers than a lifting platform, look at the divan beds. Several are built to the mattress footprint and no larger: Empire, Belle, Hampton and Chelsea all measure 135cm wide by 190cm long in a double, against 145cm × 210cm for the Luna and 165cm × 200cm for the Elena. The Wall Panel Bed uses the same 135cm × 190cm base, includes two drawers as standard, takes gas-lift ottoman storage as an upgrade, and is made in a small double as well as the larger sizes.
The foot of the bed, and the bedside
Two gaps are routinely wasted in a small bedroom. The first is the strip at the foot of the bed, which either sits empty or collects clothes. An ottoman box takes spare duvets, winter blankets and a second set of sheets, and gives the end of the bed a finished line. An end-of-bed bench does a quieter version of the same job: ours is 40cm tall and only 32cm deep, so it keeps a walkway clear, and it comes in three widths — 127cm, 140cm and 178cm — matched to double, king and super king beds.
The second is beside the bed, where a full-size table often will not fit. Our Atlantis bedsides are 40cm square and 57cm tall, supplied as a pair and delivered fully assembled — enough surface for a lamp, a glass and a book without crowding the side of the bed. You can see all of these together in our ottomans, benches and footstools.
Headboard height in a low-ceilinged room
Height is the part people forget, and it varies more than you would expect. Lena finishes at 142cm and Luna and Katie at 145cm; the Elena divan stands 135cm to the top of the bed altogether; the Suki's winged headboard reaches 180cm. Under a low ceiling or a sloped eaves wall, the lower band keeps the eye down and the room calm; a tall board in a short room reads as a wall closing in.
Check width as well. Some designs run deliberately wider than the frame so the bed reads as one upholstered plane — Lena's double headboard measures 257cm across, well past the 155cm frame. Handsome in the right room, impossible in a bedroom with a window or door near the corner. Measure the clear wall, not just the bed.
Keep the visual field low and light
Once the furniture is settled, colour does the rest. Pale, low-contrast upholstery lets a bed recede instead of announcing itself. Of our ten colours, Silver, Duck Egg, Blush and Mink are the ones that keep a small room feeling open. Texture matters too: Teddy Bouclé softens a plain room, Plush Velvet gives depth, and the flatter weaves — Fusion Linen, Naples Weave and Arlington — sharpen it up.
Colour is hard to judge on a screen, especially in a room that gets little daylight. Fabric samples cost £2.00 each — a sensible spend before committing. Look at them against the wall, in the actual room, at the time of day you use it.
Small children's rooms
Children's bedrooms are usually the smallest in the house and the hardest worked. Every bed in our children's range is made as a single or a small double, and each arrives with a Rio mattress in the same size. The headboards are tall for the size of the bed — 50 inches on most of them, 54 inches on the Victoria — because children sit up in bed to read and do homework, and a low board gives them nothing to lean on. Each bed is made individually by hand, so finished measurements vary slightly; allow a small tolerance when you plan the layout.
Before you order
Everything we sell is built to order — you choose the size, fabric and colour, and work begins once the order is placed. Allow roughly four to six weeks. Nothing is held in stock, so the measuring is worth doing properly first time.
Measure the route in as well as the room: the front door, the turn at the top of the stairs, the landing. Larger headboards are made in sections for exactly this reason — Lena's arrives in four parts that assemble in the room. Delivery is free within 50 miles of our Glasgow store and £50 beyond; the delivery information page sets out the detail.