Buy an ottoman bed and you get two products in one: a bed and a wardrobe's worth of storage hidden underneath it. Get the wrong one and you get a lid that fights you every morning and belongings sitting in dust on your bedroom floor.
We have sold beds for over 20 years, and we practise what we sell. Every bedroom in my home has an ottoman divan. So do my children's rooms, my parents' home, and the homes of most of our family and friends. This guide covers what actually matters when you buy one, drawn from thousands of customer conversations and a lot of first-hand use.
First, Know the Two Types of Ottoman Bed
Most buying guides treat "ottoman bed" as one product. It is not. There are two distinct builds, and choosing between them is the single biggest decision you will make.
Option 1: A Frame Bed With a Gas Lift Fitted
The first option adds an ottoman gas lift mechanism to a fabric frame bed. Ours uses a metal cage with pre-fitted slats, and every size above a single has reinforced bars underneath those slats. In over 10 years of selling this system, we have not had a single slat break.
This option uses two gas pistons and lifts from the end only. The bottom of the bed is open, so we supply boards that sit on support beams along the side rails. Those boards cannot cover the entire floor area, which means dust will find its way in no matter how clean your home is. Store your items in boxes and this is no problem at all.
The trade-off is worth understanding. You get less storage than a dedicated ottoman divan, but you can have the gas lift fitted to any of our fancier frame beds, including designs with a tall statement footboard. If the look of the bed matters as much as the storage, this is your route.
Watch the mechanism in action on an assembled frame bed:
Option 2: A Dedicated Ottoman Divan
The ottoman divan is built for storage from the ground up. The base is a sealed box unit, so you can store clothing, bedding and towels directly inside without boxes. Every size above a single uses four gas pistons rather than two, which makes lifting and closing noticeably easier.
Ottoman divans also sit a little higher, which many customers love, and they take up the least floor space of any bed we sell. The base is the same width and length as the mattress, plus a couple of inches for the headboard. You also get a choice of opening: end lift, left-hand side lift or right-hand side lift.
The base also changes how your mattress feels, which surprises a lot of customers. On the frame bed version, your body weight pushes the bottom of the mattress into the gaps between the slats, so the mattress feels a touch softer. On an ottoman divan, the bottom of the mattress has a completely flat surface to push against, so the firmness stays exactly as the mattress maker intended.
End Lift or Side Lift? Our Honest Recommendation
Go end lift if your room allows it. That is my genuine opinion after two decades in this trade and years of daily use at home.
The reason is simple leverage. An end lift mechanism works along the full length of the bed, so the pistons have far more leverage. Opening feels smooth and controlled, and closing takes little effort. A side lift works across the shorter width of the bed, so the pistons have to be more forceful. The lid comes up harder and takes more strength to pull back down.
Access matters too. Provided you can walk around the bed, an end lift lets you reach every part of the storage area with ease. On a side lift, the front section near the opening edge is easy to reach, but the space towards the back and up near the headboard is much harder to get at.
Side lift still earns its place. If your room is too small to stand at the foot of the bed, a side opener solves that. One thing to know: a deep upholstered headboard can catch the lid on a side opener, so our side lift ottoman divans are built a couple of inches longer, with spacers fitted to keep everything clear.
Your Mattress Is Part of the Mechanism
Most buyers never think about this one. On an ottoman bed, the mattress is not just something you sleep on. Its weight is what balances the gas pistons.
Too light a mattress and the lid can sit slightly open rather than closing flush. Worse, with heavy-duty pistons like ours, a light mattress means the bed springs up far faster than you expect. A heavier mattress works in your favour, giving you the leverage to close the lid easily.
One customer found this out the hard way. They bought a side lift ottoman divan from us but went elsewhere for the mattress, a lightweight full foam model, against our advice. Five weeks later they were back in the showroom. Their grandchild had been on the bed when the lid sprang up and swung them towards the wall. Nobody was hurt, and there was plenty of laughter as they finally bought a proper mattress from us. Match your mattress weight to your ottoman.
How Much Can You Actually Store?
On every ottoman divan above a single, the storage splits into two large halves. An end lift splits north to south, a side lift splits east to west.
In our house, my wife keeps clothing in one half and bedding and towels in the other. My children, now 11 and 15, have had single ottoman divans for years and fill theirs with toys and books. My parents use theirs for heavy dining garments. Same bed, very different uses across three generations of one family.
The two halves are roomy enough that we hear the same joke in the showroom almost weekly. A customer spots the split base, turns to her husband and says he will be sleeping in there if he misbehaves.
The frame bed with gas lift suits a different pattern. Because items are boxed against dust, it works best for seasonal things you do not need constant access to: winter duvets, summer clothes, spare bedding. The sealed ottoman divan is the one for everyday access.
Who Should Think Twice?
Ottoman beds work in almost every room. The ceiling would need to be genuinely low, with a low-hanging light directly above the bed, before the lid becomes a problem. The frame bed version lifts higher than the divan, so that is the one to check in tighter spaces. For sloped ceilings and loft rooms, a shortened headboard usually solves everything, and because every bed from Pay Weekly Beds UK is handcrafted to order in England, customisation like that is straightforward.
The one group we advise differently is customers with limited strength or mobility. For them, we steer away from the frame bed with gas lift for three reasons. Closing takes more effort with only two pistons. The mattress sits lower inside the frame. And the frame sides can catch your legs getting in and out of bed.
The ottoman divan suits those customers far better. It sits higher, and if you need to sit on the edge for a few minutes to compose yourself before standing, that extra height genuinely helps.
Can You Get It Into Your Bedroom?
Measure your hallway and staircase, not just your bedroom. Plenty of homes have a big bedroom behind a tiny entrance, and this is where the two builds swap places.
The frame bed with gas lift arrives in parts: side rails, cage, base boards, headboard, footboard and mechanism. Getting those pieces up tight stairs and around awkward corners is easy. The ottoman divan arrives fully built, in one piece for a single and two pieces for a double and above, so you are carrying half a bed upstairs. The split direction helps here too. A north-to-south split suits tight corners, while an east-to-west split suits narrow staircases with low ceilings.
Once the bed is in the room, the divan is the simpler build by far: base down, headboard on, done. The frame bed takes considerably more assembly.
Three Assembly Mistakes We See Constantly
The most common call we get after delivery is a customer who cannot push their newly assembled ottoman down. Nothing is broken. The pistons are simply doing their job, and without the mattress on the base there is no weight to balance them. Put the mattress on first, then close the lid.
The second mistake is over-tightening the nuts on the pistons. The mechanism needs room to pivot. Tighten the nuts until there is no movement at all and the bed cannot open or close properly. Snug is enough, never over tighten.
Third, make it a two-person job, especially on the frame bed with gas lift. And check the frame is sitting square before you finish. A frame that is out of square can rub against a side rail every time the bed opens, which will damage the fabric over time.
Prefer to watch the full assembly rather than read it? We filmed every step:
Cheap Import or Handcrafted? What the Extra Money Buys
We see the aftermath of budget ottomans often enough to give you a specific checklist. Imported frame ottomans are built mostly from lightweight metal rather than wood, and customers tell us they start squeaking quickly. The whole base lacks substance, so it swings left to right when you close the lid. Many use a thin fabric sheet fixed with velcro as the storage floor, and it rips as soon as you put real weight on it, leaving your belongings on the carpet. Ours use solid base boards, so your items stay off the floor.
Check the pistons too. Imports often fit lower-rated pistons that cannot handle a heavier mattress, and many imported ottoman divans use just two pistons across every size. Ours run four on anything above a single. Slats are another giveaway: imported versions often arrive loose with no reinforcement bars beneath them, where ours come pre-fitted and reinforced, with a 10-year record of zero breakages.
The last difference is customisation. An import is what it is. A handcrafted bed can be built around your room, your fabric choice and even a shortened headboard for the eaves.
The Short Answer
Choose the type first: a frame bed with gas lift for looks and boxed seasonal storage, or an ottoman divan for maximum everyday storage, easier lifting and a smaller footprint. Go end lift unless your room forces a side opener. Buy a mattress with enough weight to balance the pistons. Check the pistons, slats and base boards before you buy anything cheap. And measure the staircase, not just the bedroom.
Get those five things right and an ottoman bed will hide half your bedroom clutter for the next decade. We know, because we sleep on them every night.
