To ask for your divan bed alternatives? Box room woes.

[Hatsuma]

Please help, shameless posting in AIBU for traffic.

I’m redoing DD’s tiny box room. It makes the room look far better if I can have the bed going across the room under the window rather than along the room, and also has the added advantage of being able to fit some other furniture in the room too 😁.

At the moment, she has an extendable IKEA bed on the 165cm setting, but she’s outgrowing it and would like a more ‘grown up’ bed now that she’s 11. The usable space excluding skirting boards is 191cm.

The only beds I can find that are exactly 190cm long are divan beds, which I hate with a passion. Is anyone aware of any alternatives to a divan which are definitely no longer than 190cm, ie the mattress has to fit exactly flush with the bed?

My daughter's room is tiny too and we needed an exact fit, despite me hating divans it was the only option.

We got hers from Happy Beds (I think) and it was fully customisable so she chose the colour, headboard, feet and drawers to suit her room. As much as I had to admit it - is actually quite nice and not at all like the old patterned box style that I had envisioned!

A standard single mattress is 190cm uk size. So any bed with a frame, which is what a non divan bed is,, will have to be bigger than you want

Could you buy the divan and then do something clever on the walls to mimic a framed bed headboard?

@DoucheCanoe your username is making me chuckle btw, that’s reassuring, I’ll have a look on there.

@Dishwashersaurous yes I dare say you’re correct, I guess I’m hoping for an option which isn’t horrible, for some reason 99% of divans seem to be dark grey which wouldn’t go with the rest of her room at all.

OK. So terribly retro but valance sheet to cover the divan?

Or , bear with me, literally just put the mattress on the floor Japanese style

Could you get someone to adapt a bed frame - local joiner?
DP is fab at DIY and has customised bed frames to suit room size for example he adapted a king size bed frame to fit between 2 chests of drawers reduced size by 2-3 inches but still fits a king size mattress
DS room is awkward size and shape so DP adapted a pine bed frame to fit around skirting boards etc can now squeeze a double mattress in

We have this one in our box room www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-partners-savoy-two-open-spring-trundle-guest-bed-canvas-pebble-small-single/p3254094

It comes in various mattress types and is very comfortable.

I second the recommendation to find a carpenter to build a simple wooden bed to fit the space with storage underneath with sliding doors or a curtain to hide the stuff stored. We did this for our box room and it worked well.

We had a bed frame built into the wall by a local handyman.

We had the bulkhead in our boxroom but had a carpenter adapt a wooden bed we bought, then had storage underneath.

if the room is small then maybe reconsider the divan bed least then you can get some more storage

We made a bed from IKEA kallax units. The mattress just about fits, room is very small. We bought wooden bed slats support. It is the most comfortable bed in the house.

A friend build a bed frame where 3 sides were attached to the wall and the third side was attached to them and supported in the middle. He'd found two low chests, a bit like plan chests, and they fitted perfectly beneath.

We had our bed made from mdf to resemble the IKEA Kallax storage around the base, it worked out much cheaper than buying a bed.

@KateyKontent that looks fab!

OP we bought a cheap pine flat pack frame - cheap deliberately to be as small as possible already - and hacked it down by a couple of inches. It was literally just sawing off a little of the long side pieces and drilling a couple of extra holes. Then we just wedged the full size mattress on top. It works really well.

We then bought really good, solid underbed drawers on castors. They cost quite a lot more than the bed, but meant we could get an enormous amount of heavy stuff stored under there without worrying.

The only thing I would point out that if you've got three sides of the bed sitting tight against three walls it may cause issues with staining/mould/damp on the walls if you have any issues with condensation at all. The air needs to be able to circulate round. I was in the box room (1950's semi) as a teen and this happened to me. I had a divan though, perhaps that's just another reason to avoid them!

www.getlaidbeds.co.uk/wooden-beds/storage-beds/japanese-fuji-platform-storage-bed#product-slider

This one's 190cm. We used this company for our daughter's box room, although it was a couple of cm bigger so we didn't get this style of bed (we got the space saver platform bed at 193cm) but they're great quality, come in whatever wood colour you want, and they will make them to whatever size you need, if you have the money to pay extra.

@KateyKontent what size kallaxs gave you used? Does the mattress slide at all?

OP we have exactly the same width.

The problem with a divan of any depth 190cm long means that you literally cannot put the bed down once it's in the room, as where you have to lean it over (from vertical) it's actually wider than 190cm.

We called a custom bed producer who made the divan base in 2 parts so we could drop the second part in from above. It was a couple of hundred quid and can use a regular mattress on top.

We also measured up the Kallax ikea solution, and dd was in a small single for years (2'6" x 5'6")

Or Odd size beds are good Eg this one 190.5cm www.oddsizebeds.co.uk/studio-wooden-bed

Also bought platform space saver from get laid beds in a 2’6” for a v small bedroom. Very pleased with the quality. I would endorse giving them a call to see if a very slightly shorter option would be possible.
I agree about the air circulation being a plus compared with divans.
You would need to check the mattress situation as well I think. But bespoke mattresses also possible.

Something like this?

www.rainbow-wood.co.uk/product/richmond-storage-bed-with-2-deep-drawers/

They do have other shorty beds on the website too.

Bespoke mattresses

childrensmattressesonline.co.uk/

I used the sister company for the baby mattresses I needed.

Had the same problem when DD was younger and had a box room. I got a mattress manufacturer to make a mattress one row of springs shorter and made a standard single wooden bed base shorter, you could get a chippy to do it.
The mattress cost about £40 more than a standard, hotel grade, single mattress but I did have to wait a month for them to do a custom run.