King or super king, and is ottoman storage worth it?

A UK king size bed is 150 x 200cm and wants a wall of at least 210cm to leave 60cm of walking clearance beside it, plus a room depth of around 260cm. A super king is 180 x 200cm and wants 240cm of wall and much the same depth — the extra 30cm of width is roughly one more shoulder's worth of room for two people sharing.

Ottoman storage changes a different part of the equation. The footprint is identical to a regular frame in the same size — what it needs is clearance in front to lift the lid fully, and a little more height between the mattress and the floor once the storage base underneath is counted.

Rule one. King to super king is one shoulder's width, not a room-size jump

The step from king to super king adds 30cm of width and nothing to the length. For two people sharing, that's genuinely felt — it's close to the space one more shoulder takes up across the bed, which matters most to anyone who gets disturbed by a partner moving in the night.

For a single sleeper the extra width mostly goes unused, and the room gives up floor space for a benefit nobody there is claiming. The decision is about the people in the bed, not the size of the room around it.

Rule two. Sixty centimetres to walk round it, ninety if it's also the way through

Any side you make the bed from or walk down wants at least 60cm of clear floor — below that you're making the bed side-on rather than standing square to it. If that same side is also the room's main route, the path from the door to a wardrobe, it wants 90cm instead, so someone can pass without brushing the mattress.

The headboard wall itself needs nothing extra — the bed sits flush against it. Every centimetre of clearance budget goes on the other three sides, mostly the two long sides and the foot of the bed, which is why two rooms of the same floor area can take a very different size of bed depending on their shape.

Rule three. What ottoman storage actually costs you

A gas-lift or hydraulic ottoman base holds several hundred litres under a hinged mattress platform, and the footprint doesn't change — a king ottoman bed takes the same floor space as a king regular frame. What it needs is room in front to lift the lid fully, typically the same 60–90cm this guide already budgets for that side, so a room that fits a regular frame in a given size usually fits the ottoman version too.

The trade-off is usually height and mechanism rather than footprint: an ottoman base sits a little taller than a divan, and a manual lift needs both hands free where a hydraulic one holds itself open. Check which mechanism a specific bed uses before assuming they're interchangeable.

Eight of our beds, measured against the rules

The same arithmetic, run over our own stock — regular frames and ottoman storage beds side by side, at a spread of sizes.

Read it as a straight comparison: the regular and ottoman versions of the same nominal size take the same wall and room depth from the table above, so the choice between them is genuinely just about whether you want the storage, not about whether the room can take it.

The short version

King is 150 x 200cm, super king 180 x 200cm — 30cm of extra width, no extra length. Leave 60cm to walk round or make the bed from, 90cm if that side is also the way through. Ottoman storage doesn't change the footprint, only the clearance you need in front to open it, which this guide already accounts for.