Best ottoman and storage beds

Get that right and an ottoman is the most space-efficient storage in a bedroom, because the cavity is the full footprint of the bed rather than the depth of a drawer.

The picks

Origin Storage Bed Frame: Best for everyday storage

Mid range · 7.5 / 10

Scores 7.5. Drawers beat a lifting platform for anything you reach for often, because you are not moving the mattress to get at it. The trade is capacity, and on carpet drawers need running clearance.

Read the full Origin Storage Bed Frame review

Emma Ottoman Bed: Best ottoman

Mid range · 7.3 / 10

Scores 7.3, the highest ottoman here. The cavity is the full footprint of the bed, which is far more volume than drawers. Confirm the strut rating against your mattress weight, and check whether it lifts from the side or the foot, because side-lift needs clearance on one side of the room.

Read the full Emma Ottoman Bed review

DreamCloud Ottoman Storage Bed: Best value ottoman

Mid range · 7.1 / 10

Scores 7.1. A reasonable ottoman, and the same rule applies: the heavier your mattress, the more the strut rating matters. Deep hybrids are where these bases are most often mismatched.

Read the full DreamCloud Ottoman Storage Bed review

Origin Timber Bed Frame: If you do not actually need storage

Mid range · 7.6 / 10

Scores 7.6 and it is here as the honest alternative. A storage bed costs more, weighs more and adds a mechanism that can fail. If the storage will hold things you look at once a year, a plain frame and a wardrobe shelf is the better buy.

Read the full Origin Timber Bed Frame review

Ottoman or drawers

The last row is the one to weigh. Drawers do not care how heavy your mattress is.

Side lift or foot lift

Foot lift raises from the end of the bed. It needs clearance at the foot and is usually easier to operate, because you are lifting along the length rather than across it.

Side lift raises from one long side. It needs clearance along that side, which in a small room often means the side against the wall cannot be the lifting side.

Measure the room and decide which side will be free before ordering, because it is a build option rather than something you change later.

What to store in it, and what not to

An ottoman cavity is an enclosed space under a mattress, so it is warmer and less ventilated than a wardrobe.

Good: spare bedding, seasonal clothing, suitcases, things you access a few times a year.

Avoid: anything damp, anything that needs airflow, and anything you need weekly. Vacuum bags help with volume and also trap any moisture already in the fabric, so make sure things go in dry.

In a damp room, lift the platform occasionally to air the cavity. The same logic applies to solid platform bases, where condensation can form against the underside of a mattress.

And the specification that still decides everything

Storage is a feature. The base is still a base.

Slat spacing no more than about 7.5 centimetres, because most mattress guarantees require it and wider gaps cause the sagging that would have been claimable. Ottoman platforms are sometimes solid, which is fine for support and blocks airflow underneath.

Finished bed height: add the platform height to the mattress depth, and aim for 55 to 65 centimetres floor to mattress top. Storage bases often sit higher than a standard frame, which catches people with deep hybrids.

What not to buy

An ottoman without checking the strut rating against your mattress weight. A 35 centimetre king hybrid can be 50 kilograms or more.

A side-lift ottoman in a room where that side is against a wall.

Drawers on thick carpet, without checking the running clearance.

A storage bed for storage you will use once a year, when a wardrobe shelf and a cheaper frame do the job.

Any base with slats more than about 7.5 centimetres apart, storage or not.

Also considered, and why they are not here

A roundup is only as useful as what it leaves out, so here is what was assessed and rejected for this list.

How this list is made, and who made it

Who writes this. Kyle Klinkradt has worked in the mattress and bedding industry for over ten years across retail, distribution and brand partnerships, and has handled, sold or assessed products from every major UK bed-in-a-box brand. Every review on this site is written by one person, so the scores mean the same thing from page to page.

What the assessment is. Construction specifications against what they physically do: spring height and where in the mattress it sits, spring count for the size, gauge, whether the base is sprung or foam, foam density where it is published, comfort layer depth and material. Then the commercial terms that decide what you are actually buying: trial against returns policy, guarantee length against the company's UK trading history at Companies House, and the regulatory record.

What it is not. This is not a laboratory. I do not publish pressure-mapping data or claim to have slept eight years on every mattress here, because nobody has and pages that imply otherwise are not telling you the truth. Where a judgement rests on construction rather than long-term use, the review says so.

What gets a product removed. Leaving the UK market, a specification change that makes the review inaccurate, or a corrected fact. Brands that have withdrawn are kept on the site with the score removed rather than quietly deleted, because people still search for them.

See editorial independence, corrections and the author page.

How these were chosen

Every product here has its own review on this site with a score out of 10, and the score is a judgement rather than an average. Nothing appears in a list because it pays more.

A score is against the market, not against its own range. The cheapest mattress in a lineup is usually priced to make the model above it look reasonable, and the flagship of a budget range has risen into a bracket where better brands compete. Both are judged against what else you could buy for the money.

Everything listed can actually be bought in the UK. That is not a given: Casper withdrew in July 2020 and Leesa no longer sells here, and both still appear in current British roundups with affiliate links attached.

I do not pad the list. Where only three or four products genuinely qualify, there are three or four. A list of seven when the category contains four good ones is a list with three bad recommendations in it.

Prices move constantly. Judge the cash price on the day rather than any percentage beside it. See every review on this site or where the real savings are.

Questions people ask

What should I check before buying an ottoman bed?

The gas strut rating against your actual mattress weight. A 35 centimetre king hybrid can weigh 50 kilograms or more, and struts sized for a lighter mattress make the platform hard to lift and can let it drop faster than it should.

Are ottoman beds or drawer beds better?

Ottomans hold far more, because the cavity is the full footprint of the bed. Drawers are better for anything you reach for often, because you are not moving the mattress, and drawer storage does not care how heavy your mattress is.

Should I choose side lift or foot lift?

Foot lift needs clearance at the end of the bed and is usually easier to operate. Side lift needs clearance along one long side, which in a small room often rules out the side against the wall. It is a build option rather than something you change later.

What should I not store in an ottoman bed?

Anything damp, anything that needs airflow, and anything you need weekly. The cavity is enclosed and sits under a mattress, so it is warmer and less ventilated than a wardrobe.