Small bedrooms can be delightfully cozy, but pragmatically difficult in this era of shoe closets.
My clients in Project HGD Lake Camp wanted to maximize the small cottage’s sleeping capacity with queen beds in every room (and a queen and a twin in the biggest room!), but the bedrooms are all pretty small small — like 9 feet deep small.
And yet 2 of the 3 bedrooms didn’t have closets.
Oy! Where to put clothes?
Storage beds are the obvious answer, but we had a couple of stumbling blocks:
- So many storage beds have the drawers at the foot of the bed these days (you’ll see why further down the post), and, as we discussed, the bedrooms are only 9 feet deep. With beds being 80″ long, there wouldn’t be enough room to pull out the darn drawer all the way without hitting the wall.
- The client preferred not to have upholstered beds, which many storage beds are.
- The clients wanted to allocate more of their budget toward the main rooms of the cottage which would get the most use. So custom beds were not their priority and the cost would have to reflect that.
However, I’m really a stickler for hardwood construction when it comes to beds (which also comes with a higher price tag).
Why the emphasis on hardwood?
Well, because pine swells and shrinks more with the weather, and that change will affect the tightness of screws, squeakiness, overall strength, etc.
And MDF or particle board — well, they definitely aren’t made to withstand an entire body’s (or TWO entire bodies’) tossing and turning (or whatever else (!!! 😉 )) all night long for many years. And I really like to keep big furniture out of the landfill.
The Best Cheap Storage Bed Ever
Then, in my desperate searches, I came across this hardwood, made-in-the-USA, 5-year-warranty platform bed:
Yes, I know it isn’t pretty (it kinda reminds me of my dorm-room bed), but we’ll fix that!!!
In the meantime, just look at this support system!
One of the reasons that I LOVE this bed, is that the manufacturer’s measurements are super specific:
Also, there is no lip at all between the edge of the bed and where the mattress is. So we can make a really pretty bedskirt to hide that utilitarian unfinished poplar and put storage underneath!
The manufacturer makes drawers and trundles, both on easy roll wheels. We purchased drawers.
(If you’re interested in some awesome trundle beds, you can read this post.)
The only kicker is that it can be kind of a pain to lift up a whole bedskirt every time you want to get a fresh pair of socks.
Folks, you’ve heard the expression, “Cheap, fast, and good — you can only pick 2.” Well, that goes with this bed, too. It’s cheap, and it’s good, but it may not be convenient. However, we did try to make it a little more convenient using this handy trick —
A Faux Tailored Bedskirt — the Storage Bed’s Friend
How faux?
Faux because it’s actually 3 panels on each side, not one long panel with a pleat in middle.
We attached various inexpensive headboards to the storage bed frame, stapled down the bed skirt to the support rails so it wouldn’t shift, and voila!
It’s a little thing, but it means that you can just flip up one side and rest it on the mattress while you pull out your drawer, rather than having to hold the darn thing up with one hand because it’s so long, and goes around the corner to the foot panel.
A Mistake to Avoid
There’s a reason why so many storage beds now have their drawers at the foot rather than on the sides.
Bedside tables.
If you have a storage bed with 2 drawers on either side of a bed, the top of which goes all the way up to the headboard, it will be blocked if you use a bedside table … which most of us do.
This is why many storage beds now have drawers at the foot. A LOT of people probably make this mistake.
So if you want to get a storage bed, you need to have something other than your typical nightstand.
We came up with 2 solutions.
Floating bedside tables, and….
C-Tables (with drawers).
Yes, obviously in the above room, we chose a bona fide *storage bed* to mix things up a bit.
To illustrate:
SO! The moral of the story is:
“Don’t drop a ton of money on a storage bed and a really pretty nightstand without first considering if you’re going to be able to even access those things you’ve spent so much effort in putting away!”
Some great night stands (a lot of Etsy makers!) to use with storage beds:
And a little Pin-able graphic to remember me by!
This coming week is the beginning of the Spring 2019 One Room Challenge! I’ll be joining in with my “Ain’t No Plain Jane Powder Room.” I hope you’ll tune in!
‘Til next time!
-Amy
