Whitfield Kids Ottoman Divan Bed: Compact Length, Full-Footprint Storage

Two things make the Whitfield kids ottoman divan bed worth a look if you are furnishing a small bedroom. It is 191.5 cm long in every size, which is shorter than many beds and can be the difference between fitting and not fitting. And the whole of its base is storage, so the bed earns back the floor a chest of drawers would have taken.

The length is the headline

• 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

Those are the finished dimensions of the bed at its widest point, not mattress sizes. In a box room the wall the bed has to go along is often interrupted by a door, a window or a chimney breast, and a few centimetres decide the whole layout. Measure the wall, not the mattress. The product page carries a size guide drawn from the side and from above, every size to one scale, which is quicker to work from than a tape measure and a photograph.

How the base opens

The base lifts as one piece. Gas struts take the weight of the mattress and the top swings up from the side, opening the full footprint of the bed as a single lined compartment. There are no drawers, no runners and nothing that needs to clear a wall or a wardrobe door, so the bed works pushed into a corner, which is where a child's bed usually ends up.

That matters more than the raw volume. A drawer base in a corner can only use the one side and the one end that face into the room, so half the storage you paid for is unreachable. A lift-up base loses nothing to its position. The compartment is also one space rather than four, so a duvet, a sleeping bag or a bulky box goes in whole instead of being squeezed flat.

The counterweight: a lid is not a cupboard for daily things. Keep school uniform and tomorrow's reading book somewhere a child can reach on their own, and use the ottoman for the seasonal, the spare and the kept. A gas-strut base is also not something a young child should be opening unsupervised, and if you want to know how the struts behave on the size you are considering, ask us rather than guess.

A headboard with one good idea

The Whitfield headboard is narrow vertical channels with a single row of fabric-covered buttons across the upper third. The restraint is the point. One row of buttons gives the board a line to read without the deep diamond buttoning that can look over-dressed in a young person's room, and narrow channels keep the surface calm.

The board is upholstered in the same cloth as the base and the sides, so the bed arrives as one piece rather than a frame and a board that nearly match. The headboard offered is the 54 inch floor-standing version, which runs to the floor behind the bed and leaves no gap for small things to slip down.

Twenty-six colourways

The Whitfield is upholstered to order in any of 26 colourways, drawn from the Coniston, Naples, Chenille, Linoso and Plush Velvet cloths. Headboard, base and sides all come in the one you pick.

For a child's room the broken weaves in middle tones are the sensible ground: Charcoal Chenille, Silver Chenille, Mink Coniston, Armour Coniston. Emerald Coniston and Slate Grey Naples are the two that look least like a children's bed, which is useful if you want it to still suit the room in five years. The paler creams and velvets are beautiful and will ask more of you.

Comparing the options

If the child needs to get into their storage every day, the drawer version of the Whitfield is the better bed. If the problem is volume and the room is tight, this one is. Across our ottoman beds the side-lifting base is consistently the design that survives a corner, and you can see the rest of them on the kids ottoman divan beds page, where the same mechanism sits under several other headboards.

Mattresses are sold separately so the tension is your choice. We deliver beds in Scotland from our Glasgow store, free within 50 miles and £50 beyond that. Size and fabric are both selected on the Whitfield ottoman product page, which prices the combination as you build it.