Don’t be tempted to outsource this construction job to a Taskrabbit; the Thuma assembles as easily as promised. It took one GQ staffer just 30 minutes to put the bed together by himself, no galaxy brain maneuvering or drills required. Its frame and double-strength slats lock into place to prevent them moving (and squeaking) about, and the bed itself features solid, repurposed wood, plus cork padding underneath, so it doesn’t scrape your bedroom floor. The finished product is motion-stabilized, thoughtfully designed, and exceedingly sturdy.
The Best Storage Bed Frame: EQ3 “Marcel”
If you’ve ever wanted a bed that feels a little like a souped-up convertible, EQ3’s ultramodern Marcel storage bed is the one to consider for your current life crisis. Instead of a cupboard-style system that rolls out storage from underneath, the Marcel physically lifts up like a Murphy bed for stuffing all of your unmentionables and linens where the sun don’t shine. The design is so ingenious we recognized it in our Home Awards, with the only ding here being that it’s made from a composite core wood, finished off with a varnish (not fully solid wood).
What Shoppers Say: “The design and build quality of this is top-tier. My partner and I live in a condo and the storage cavern beneath this king bed is invaluable. It’s OK to set up on your own if you have the time and tools, otherwise I recommend the white glove service. Highly recommend for anyone that wants a gorgeous frame with smart storage.”
The Best Modern Platform Bed Frame: Sapling Studio
This writer overcame a years’ long odyssey for the perfect bed frame after scouting this one on Etsy. Made by a small woodworking business out in Denver called Sapling Studio, the bed uses a simple jigsaw construction to lock planks into place for an elegant Japanese slash Scandi-style effect. The two main pieces, and all the adjoining support pieces that form the base of the bed, fit together via perfectly whittled-out grooves to prevent the angled beams from moving around. Everything came together in about 10 minutes without any head-scratching involved, and after several months sleeping on this thing, I can report that the frame is absolutely silent. For small apartment-dwellers, the bed is also high enough off the ground to offer plenty of room for storing giant underbed containers and boxes under there.
The Best Metal Bed Frame: Olee Sleep
Olee’s steel bed frame is one of the odd metal options we’ve seen that actually has a full steel slat system rather than a measly support bar holding the thing together. That means it’s more stable, and less likely to make you feel like you are emerging from a sinkhole every morning. The good shoppers over at Amazon don’t often unanimously agree, but they do on this point: This thing is sturdy as hell, and plenty convenient considering that it comes with all the tools you need to assemble and tighten it. For all these reasons, it earned a nod in our guide to the best beds on Amazon and a GQ Sleep Award. Not too shabby for a bed that can be purchased for under $100 on sale.
What Shoppers Say: “We have had this bed frame for almost 3 years now and it’s still going strong! It’s survived a move and was actually pretty easy to transport, even upstairs. The storage space is AMAZING!” —a reviewer on Amazon
The Bed Frame That’ll Make Your Home Feel Like an AD Spread: Sarah Ellison “Yoko”
Australian designer Sarah Ellison’s known for her dreamy furniture that’s all soft curves, warm woods, puffy textures, and earth tones. Replacing traditional legs with spherical orbs, her spacey Yoko bed frame makes the bed look like it’s hovering somewhere above the ground, supported by a large slatless plank. Now you can finally tell them, “This is where the magic happens,” and mean it.
What Shoppers Say: “This images online make the frame look heavy but once I reviewed the bed in person, it instead had much more of an understated elegance that fits with most decor, and could fit well in any size bedroom. The ball feet are solid wood, the back board is a veneer, but the frame is heavy and the slats are solid, thick and wide. This bed pairs well with both antiques and/or midcentury modern furniture (of which I have both in the same room)…Now in this review nearly a year later, I still love the look.” —a reviewer on the DWR site
The Instagram-Famous Bed Frame: Floyd
If you’re online in any sense, it’s probably algorithmically unlikely that you’ve missed Floyd’s elegant, low-lying platform bed. The jewel of Instagram’s targeted ads owes a lot to the minimalist Donald Judd aesthetic: It uses a slatless, screwless design relying on a couple of wooden planks, and at least one of our editors owns and loves it. Reviews online vary—some point to peeling wood and others flimsy support straps—but if you’re looking for a stylish low-to-the-ground option to take with you to your next five apartments, it’s hard to imagine a superior combination of aesthetics, ease, and price (even if the Floyd isn’t a slam dunk A+ in any of those lone categories). This is also the type of product that’s much more compelling when it’s on sale.
The Best Starter Bed Frame: The Foundation by Casper
Casper didn’t make the world’s first bed-in-a-box mattress, but it was the entry point into this model for most of us. Now, Casper says that it’s “reinvented the box spring.” This simple bed frame is another GQ Sleep Award winner, and it includes a mattress foundation that provides support, elevation, and breathability, ensuring your fancy new mattress lasts as long as possible. And like the popular Thuma frame, no tools are required to assemble this piece of furniture. This here writer propped her bed up on it for years before finally shelling out for a real bed frame, and it served her very well across several moves. It’s wildly easy to assemble, deconstruct, and pop in a moving truck, plus the fabric outer looks handsome in person. It’s not the vibiest option out there, but for $349, it’s tough to beat this construction.
The Best Basic Platform Bed: Article Basi
For a very basic approach to propping up your bed, the platform bed is a dead-simple, easy-assemble way to do so. This one feels more modern than most cookie-cutter midcentury versions. It’s low to the ground, with elegant tapered legs that are set far back enough that they appear to be floating. The bed also comes in at a very approachable price point if you’re leveling up from a basic metal frame. You can choose from either a wood veneer like this or one that’s painted white, but either will have a foundation of plywood slats to support your mattress sans box spring. It may not be as easy to assemble as the Thuma platform, but it shouldn’t take you more than an hour to piece it together.
