A single ottoman bed or single bed with storage offers a useful bit of extra space. Most people use them for stuffing away their winter duvet, spare bedding or Christmas decorations. I won’t judge you if use it for storing your collection of White Dwarf magazines from the 1990s.
Your three main options are:
1. A single wooden bed with drawers (e.g. Mission Wooden Bed)
These look nice and usually come with a headboard attached. Most are made from pine. A few posher ones are made from oak, which is a harder and more expensive wood but I would say that these are in the minority.
The main downside in my opinion is that there’s a high chance of whacking your knee on the corner of a wooden single bed. Some have ‘solid slats’ which give a firmer feel. Others have ‘sprung slats’ which feel a bit softer and usually cost a bit more.
2. A single divan bed with drawers (e.g. Grandeur Divan)
Single divan beds with drawers tend to be the cheapest option. Cheap ones are single ‘platform divan bases’, which are a basic wooden frame covered in fabric. Expensive ones are single ‘sprung edge divan bases’ which have their own set of springs to add a bit of comfort. Personally, I don’t think divans look as nice but they’re a sensible purchase. They tend to be cheap and they provide a good solid base for your mattress. You’ll need to buy a headboard separately.
3. A single ottoman bed (e.g. Bedmaster Ottoman)
Single ottoman beds lift up at the end or side thanks to some clever hydraulic magic. They offer the biggest amount of storage space and come in various styles (wooden, upholstered, divan). They tend to be the most expensive option.
Our selection of single beds with storage
We’ve picked out five of the best single beds with storage and single ottoman beds you can buy in the UK. We looked at factors including value for money, specification and materials, guarantee length, brand reputation and customer reviews. Prices are correct at the time of typing.
1. Mission Wooden White Single Bed With Storage – £279
This neat single bed with drawers goes by a couple of names including the Mission single storage bed and the Amani single bed. It makes our list as it scores about 4.7/5 from about 300 customers.
You get a choice of buying it as a white or grey single bed or with a natural pine finish. Pine is a commonly used wood for single storage beds. It’s a fairly cheap wood compared to something like oak, but it is certainly solid enough. You won’t end up in a heap on the floor in the morning but you also can’t boast to your neighbours about what your bed is made of.
You get three drawers, so not quite as much storage as you get with a single ottoman bed. However, it’s a little bit easier to organise things and get to them.
The Mission bed has got a sprung slatted base. That means that it will give a mattress a bit of a softer feel than you’d with a solid slatted base.
It comes with a very decent five year guarantee from Happy Beds. Most single beds with storage only offer a year or two’s warranty.
Need a mattress to go with your single bed with storage?
You can add on a single mattress from about £100.
My advice would be to go for a single pocket spring mattress if you can afford it. The old fashioned alternative is a cheap open coil mattress, which is far less supportive.
The other option is a single memory foam mattress. You get a nice consistent level of support from a good memory foam mattress. Some people aren’t so keen on the slight sinking feeling whilst other people find that they feel a bit warmer on a foam bed than they do on a pocket spring mattress.
Pros: the five year warranty is better than most beds and it has a low price. You get a choice of colours and a sprung slatted base.
Cons: it’s a less famous name than some bed brands and it has a softwood construction
2. GFW Classic Leather Single Ottoman Storage Bed – £179
This one is for you, fellow bargain hunters!
Amazon has a few cheap single ottoman beds but we’ve picked out this one as it gets good reviews (4.2/5 from 200+ customers). It also comes in a couple of different colours and sizes.
It’s got sprung wooden slats. These give a bit of a softer feel than the alternative, which is solid wooden slats.
The idea of a single ottoman bed is that it stays in place when you lift it up. That means you get a huge amount of space underneath compared to a single bed with drawers. I’d say that a single bed with drawers is better for keeping your socks and pants, which you’ll need everyday. An ottoman is ideal for keeping spare bedding or clothes, which you hide away in winter.
It only comes with a one year guarantee but that’s not surprising considering the bargain price.
You won’t be surprised to hear that you lift this one up manually. Some posh ottomans have an electric lifting mechanism (although that’s quite rare on single size ottomans).
A baseless design
Like a lot of single ottoman beds, this one doesn’t have a solid base to it so your things just sit on the floor (on a fabric base). That might sound like a cheap option (which it is). However, it also means that you can pile in all your heavy stuff without worrying about it breaking the base.
It doesn’t come with a mattress, but our guide to the 10 best mattresses has a few ideas to get you started. If you are on the lookout for a cheap mattress to go with this cheap base then you would be best to start with our guide to mattresses under £200.
Pros: it’s got a very low price and offers more storage space than you get with drawers, different sizes and colours
Cons: one year warranty, unknown brand
3. Bedmaster Francis Grey Wooden Single Ottoman Storage Bed Frame – £395
This single ottoman storage bed opens at the side instead of the end. That might work better for you, depending on the layout of your room.
It’s made by a Yorkshire company called Bedmaster and comes in grey. I like the look of a single wooden bed and you get the added advantage of having a headboard attached. The main downside is that they’re painful if you walk into them compared to a single divan base with storage or an upholstered single ottoman bed.
The Bedmaster Francis comes with a one year warranty. That’s nothing to write home about, but most reviews I’ve found online are very positive about it.
Better built than some cheaper single beds with storage
This single ottoman storage bed also has a ‘sturdy frame crafted from high-grade solid oak wood’. Oak is a classier and harder wood than pine, which is often used in single beds (although pine does a good enough job, to be honest).
There’s no floor to this one, by which I mean that you can see your carpet when you lift up the bed. Some ottoman beds have a board on the bottom although I wouldn’t say that’s really a dealbreaker for me. As I said earlier, it means that you can fill it up with heavy items. I can’t really see an advantage to having a base.
I’m afraid this one doesn’t have an electric lifting button so you have to do it by hand. However, hydraulics do a lot of the work for you on a bed like this.
Pros: it’s got a side opening, which will work better for some bedrooms.
Cons: wooden corners can be hazardous
4. Dreams Yardley Upholstered Single Ottoman Bed Frame – £249
This Dreams single ottoman bed is a good price considering that it’s from a retailer you recognise and has outstanding reviews. It scores 4.7/5 from more than 1000 customers. It also has a solid base for your mattress to sit on rather than slats. That should provide plenty of stability and strength.
The Yardley single bed comes in a couple of colours including a faux leather version and an upholstered version. It only has a manual lifting option, which is not a great surprise.
There is one rather notable (but quite boring) similarity between this single ottoman bed and the Bedmaster model above (see #3). They both fully sit on the floor rather than having a base. That means that you can put very heavy things in the bottom of this one without damaging the base. However, you might prefer the look of a single bed with legs.
The main downside is that it comes with a one year warranty, which is not spectacular.
Pros: big name retailer with good reputation, good reviews and a solid base to offer good support for the mattress
Cons: poor choice of colours and only a one year guarantee
5. Grandeur Platform Top Divan Bed Base – £199
A single divan base with drawers is not the most exciting purchase you will make this year. You are unlikely to be sat by the front door awaiting the delivery van or uploading dozens of photos to Instagram.
I can’t help but wonder how they came up with the name Grandeur when looking at a grey box with drawers.
That aside, there’s a lot to be said for a divan base such as this one from Divan Base Direct.
For starters, it gives your mattress a good solid base. Single beds with slatted bases are usually fine but if the gaps between the slats are too big then it can damage the mattress. This guide reckons that a gap of 7cm is the maximum you should put up with.
Secondly, divan bases now come in a big range of colours. You aren’t stuck with that hearing-aid beige colour that used to be the only option with some divan beds. This single divan base comes in 28 different colours. Admittedly some of the more interesting ones cost a bit extra.
Thirdly, a simple platform divan base is very cheap. You can pay extra for a single ‘sprung divan base’ with storage but this one will offer a simple and cheap base for single bed. Don’t forget to budget for a headboard though.
Pros: very low price, it will offer consistent support for your mattress, choice of colours, less painful to walk into than a wooden bed
Cons: less storage space than an ottoman bed, less trendy than a bedframe
There are more than 20 colours to choose from and it’s a cheap option
