Most bedrooms on the main level of tiny houses are very small, with very little extra space to even walk around the bed. This is the desired plan for most people who live in tiny houses. However, there is one spot in your home that may have been overlooked as a storage opportunity. Unfortunately, many plans don’t give any room for storage under the bed because there would be no room to pull drawers or bins out from under the bed.

I have a solution to this dilemma. Instead of using a regular bed with a mattress, box spring and a bed frame on wheels, that would possibly allow you to slide a few very thin things under the bed and pull them out by sliding the bed over. There is a better way!

First, build a plywood platform for your mattress, eliminating the box springs. Then, build a frame that will hold that platform, with the mattress, and incorporate drawers. Decide on the dimensions of the drawers, considering the amount of stuff you need to store. You can make the drawers as deep as you like, but the deeper the drawers, the higher the bed. I found a set of lovely drawers at a yard sale and had my bed frame built around them. Make sure to put wheels on this unit so when you want to open the drawers in a very small room, you can slide the bed over against the wall, giving you the needed space to open the drawers. When done, you can put the bed back into the middle of the tiny bedroom so you can walk around it to make the bed, or get into the bed when you are ready.

If drawers and building the framework are more of a project than you want to take on, another solution could be to raise a normal bed up higher using plastic risers under the legs. Then you could consider using those plastic storage bins under the bed.

Another, more costly option for a downstairs bedroom would be a hydraulic system that, when raised up, offers very accessible storage under the mattress. This type of system is frequently seen in travel RV’s. You could also use a Murphy bed, that stores up against the wall when not in use. A big draw-back to a Murphy is that it takes up a lot of storage space. There is a kind of Murphy bed that has a desk built into it when folded up; but this is also a costly choice.

One more note: Instead of putting night stands on either side of the bed, which would keep you from sliding the bed over, you can hang shelves on the wall just above the bed level and add some lamp sconces. You can install shelves all the way to the ceiling on either side of the bed for additional storage.