Battling with the ongoing struggle to find enough space in your home or apartment? You’re not alone. This common issue particularly afflicts city-dwellers where square footage comes at a premium, or down-sizers, when you’ve lost valuable loft and other storage space. A Furl storage bed is the answer to this problem.
Thankfully, we are here to help, with space-saving ideas and very comfortable, practical solutions for your bedroom. Everyone needs a bed, so why not make it a 2-in-1 by getting a storage bed and unlock a wealth of unutilised storage potential?
It’s far better and more useful than sticking things under the bed, and comes with a lot more space than bed with drawers!
In this post, we help you with 5 practical ways you can carefully organise your storage bed. Transforming your cluttered under-bed space into an efficient, well-organised way to store everything you need and want to keep safe, special, or ready for a date they’ll be used in the future.
What is a storage bed?
A storage bed, also known as an ottoman bed, is an ideal solution for those looking for an efficient way to maximise storage space in any bedroom, big or small.
Featuring a hollow base set in a sturdy metal frame (either with legs or touching the ground), storage beds provide a convenient and easily accessible way to store anything from bedding to clothing, Christmas trees, and decorations, ironing boards, shoes, toys, boxes of all shapes and sizes, even (and often with Furl beds!) full-sized suitcase.
When it comes to organising the storage space within a storage bed, it’s important to ensure that all items are placed in such a way that the bed still closes, and everything fits in a way you can access what’s needed more often vs. what you might only need once a year.
This will make it easier to ensure whatever you need can be found quickly and easily. Any items that are not in use should be stored behind or underneath more useful items so you can grab what you need when it’s needed. Additionally, it’s helpful to ensure that items are placed in boxes or suitcases, and they’re labeled – if you want to be super-organised!
Follow these 5 simple steps to ensure that your storage bed is organised, helping you to make the most out of the space that you have available.
5 easy ways to organise storage beds
Organising storage under and within a storage bed can be a great way to make the most of the space in your bedroom. Depending on how you use the space in a storage bed, you might be able to free up more room by removing a wardrobe. Imagine what you could do with the extra space?
Investing in a combination of under-bed storage boxes is a great way to store items such as clothing, bedding, and shoes. Additionally, you can make use of wall space around the bed by fitting shelves, hooks, or other wall-mounted storage solutions above the bed and on your walls to store items such as books, perfumes, and clothes.
Putting bedside tables on either side of the bed can provide even more storage and somewhere to charge your phone. If space is limited, this could double as a dressing table.
If you have a bit more space, why not put an ottoman box at the foot of the bed? These can be used to store larger items such as extra blankets and pillows.
1. Pick the right storage bed
When it comes to organising storage in a storage bed, there are a few things to do first. The first step is to measure the space available and decide right-sized storage bed for the space you have.
Furl storage beds are the most beautiful, comfortable, practical, and easy to open, and have the deepest storage (from 20cm to 40cm) you’ll find anywhere. Our space-conscious storage beds take up less space in your room and are delivered and assembled by our team in your home.
They come with 100s of fabric choices, with or without headboards, and the frames take up less space than the average storage beds. Sizes go from Single to Emperor, and you can even order one naked so that you can pick fabrics later on. When it comes to opening mechanisms, they’re easy to lift with side or end opening mechanisms, and there are electric options, too.
We’ve carefully designed these beds to open all the way to the back to reach everything you need, so there’s no “dead space” underneath that forces you to fling things to the back and hope you can get it again one day!
Once the ottoman bed is in place, the next step is to sort what will be stored in the storage bed. To make the most of the storage space, it is a good idea to buy boxes or baskets to store items.
2. Divide up the space
Organising your storage bed can seem like a daunting task, but with a bit of planning, it can be done with ease. Especially if you love organising things anyway, then you’ll probably find it loads of fun and very satisfying when it’s finished!
Start with measuring the size of the storage bed’s internal capacity so that you can figure out the best way to divide up the space (feel free to do that in our 3 London showrooms, and even bring along a suitcase to figure out where to put things).
Consider what items you’ll be storing in the bed and how often you’ll need to access them. To make the most of the storage space, divide it into large, medium, and small sections, and use boxes or containers to store items in the large sections and smaller containers or baskets in the smaller sections.
You could also label the containers to make it easier to identify what’s inside and where they should be stored. Leave enough room for air to circulate around the items.
3. Invest in storage boxes and bags
It’s worth investing in under-bed storage boxes that fit the size of your ottoman bed. IKEA, Amazon, and dozens of other shops sell these. Buy a few different types of storage boxes and bags, such as baskets, canvas bags, and plastic bins. Labeling each storage box or bag will help you to identify the contents easily. Place items in the storage boxes or bags that you use the most for easy access.
Utilise any extra space in your storage bed with slimline storage boxes. Place heavier items at the bottom of the storage bed for stability. Make sure to use the available vertical space and stack the boxes, if possible. This will help you to maximise your storage space and keep your bedroom organised.
4. Store seasonal items in a suitcase, open or closed
Suitcases are an absolute pain to store! Unless you’ve got a dedicated closet or loft, they’re a nightmare but a necessary one if you travel and go on holiday.
On the plus side, they’re fantastic storage solutions in themselves! So, make the most of them. Furl beds with storage can store suitcases, either open or closed, and you can use these to store items you don’t need all year, like winter clothes, bulky coats, or spare pillows and other things. Then, when you are traveling or going on holiday, simply take everything out of the suitcase and leave them where the suitcase was in the storage bed and use it as a suitcase on your travels.
5. Embrace the label maker
With the added storage space, you can easily organise and store all sorts of things and keep your room tidy and organised.
Buying a label maker to label boxes and other containers that can be stored in the storage bed is always helpful. Place items into containers and label them according to their use. For example, label one box ‘bedding’, another ‘towels,’ and so on. Labels will make everything easier to find.
Looking for the perfect storage bed?
When it comes to storage bed options, Furl has a variety of choices available in every size, with different opening mechanisms and maximising the amount of storage space you can use.
We’ve designed ours to open all the way, so the space at the back (closest to the headboard) is just as accessible as the storage space throughout. They’re easy to lift, and you can even have an electronic opening mechanism, too.
Furl beds, like the Illusion, appear as though they have no storage at all but actually contain a massive amount of storage. The Low storage bed is great for tiny bedrooms – it sits low to the ground, so it can provide ample storage without looking like it fills the space in the room.
We hope this post was useful for picking your storage bed and making the most of the storage space within it!