apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Alex-

I would recommend the Alsarp mattress base. My girlfriend and I got one for her tiny studio apartment. The amount of stuff you can hold in there is phenomenal. It's good that the neutral white fabric "upholstery" that covers the outside of the thing is inoffensive, because to cover it would be a little tricky, though not impossible. A typical bed skirt wouldn't work very well because it would get fouled up every time you opened and closed the "lid". In theory the covering removes via velcro for cleaning.

The construction seems solid, much more so than the typical rickety Ikea stuff. No creaks or wobbles so far. The hardware is heavy-duty; there's a nice rachet system to hold the mattress up while you're moving things in and out and gas shocks to keep it from slamming down when you do close it. The one we got has become a little bit annoying in that it's slightly more difficult to close, (the rachets are out of sync: you have to open it all the way and push hard before it will drop) but it's not a big deal.

One thing to consider is that if you are a petite woman with a large mattress you might find it challenging to lift the mattress up.

I know it's not on the website, but that may not mean they don't still sell them.

Good luck,

Sam

I went out to IKEA to look at this item specifically last weekend.

It seems like it is made really well, and quite sturdy. The amount of under the bed storage space in the queen size seems incredible. And it has the added advantage of the items you are storing not getting dusty!

You can either put metal or wood "feet" on it.

To solve the bedskirt problem - you could just cut the middle part of the bedskirt and use velcro to attach it to the interior sides of the frame.

I agree that the queen size (it comes in full and twin also) would be kind of hard to open for a smaller person. Especially if you have a heavier mattress. I'm 5-3 and had to give it a few good yanks to get it open. The mattresses on the sample models in the store were quite thin.

And in case anyone is wondering...these will NOT fit into a bedframe. The storage base is meant to be the bedframe.

If anyone has seen a similar storage device that fits into a bedframe, I would love to hear about it!!!

Anybody shopping for quality furniture at IKEA prices should consider going down to chinatown in NYC. I bought a solid wood bedframe there with slideout drawers PLUS extra store on the other side of the bed for out of season clothing for under $300 delivered! Deliver is usually free (a $30 tip for a bed would do nicely). They assemble it for you too!

I have one of these. It took forever to assemble, but it's very sturdy for Ikea gear. No 'gas shocks' on mine though - when you drop the mattress platform, it really drops (maybe Ikea upgraded it sometime in the past year – seems like it was discontinued for awhile, and now appears to be back).

I'm starting to have the same problem getting it closed that others have reported. I'm thinking maybe the latch just needs a bit of grease. Apart from that, the quality is exceptional (for Ikea). And yeah, it holds a LOT of stuff. If you stick tall legs on it, you'll even have room for additional underbed storage. But I'd recommend getting a slim mattress if you go with tall legs, as the platform itself is quite high.

If you go with the queen-sized model, you're gonna need to use it with a lightweight mattress - maybe one of those air-filled models from Select Comfort or Comfortaire. I have a Comfortaire full-sized mattress, and even that's pretty heavy. It would be very difficult to use this thing with a regular queen-sized mattress. OTOH, if you're storing stuff you seldom need to use then it's not such a problem.

One other thought for a storage bed - Ikea has those office shelving/cabinet units, Effektiv. I was thinking you could buy a bunch of units like these:

http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?topcategoryId=15600&catalogId=10103&storeId=12&productId=76580&langId=-1&categoryId=16136&chosenPartNumber=S09837905

You could arrange them so the footprint is large enough to support your mattress (maybe cover any small gaps between the units with plywood). Just make sure your mattress can be used with a platform bed. That would give you tons of storage space, and if you ever got a "real" bed, you could recycle the storage units for use against a wall, or as bench beneath a window, etc.

If you search for storage bed on AT you will find many postings on similar beds as well as hydraulic lift kits. Even the kits are in the $300 range for a queensize though, so this Ikea model seems like a decent value - as always ;-).

I went to Ikea a few months ago, and I looked at this bed. It was more difficult to lift the mattress than I expected. I think it would be a hassle to lift it everyday, but maybe it would be ok once every few weeks. My wife said "no" to it.

I have this bed too, with an Ikea foam mattress. It's really heavy to lift, and the handle ripped off after about two weeks. I called Ikea to see if they make any reccomendations regarding mattress, but the saleswoman insisted it worked well with any mattress. Wrong.

I own this Ikea bed and find it wonderful! It is well made, if somewhat of a pain to assemble. And lifting the top will prove a little heavy for those unaccustomed to lifting more than 15 lbs at a time, but the huge amount of storage is great. We also bought an IKEA mattress to go with it (a sultan) which is not too shabby, but the size of the frame will work with any standard sized mattress, so if you have a favorite, use your own.

The amount of storage is simply huge; call me a satisfied IKEA customer.

http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=7&langId=-20&catalogId=10103&productId=79437

Okay here is a link to the product. It’s a UK link. The US website SUCKS but the ideas that Ikea has for products seem decent.
-david

I have the full-size version of this and I love it! The fabric strap shown in the photo snapped the second time I used it, but that's fine since it's probably a better idea to lift it by the metal surround anyway. Other than that, the bed is solidly constructed and the price is very reasonable.

Depending on the mattress, it can be a bit heavy to lift but I store items under my bed that I don't need access to more than a couple times a year, like out-of-season clothes. It's absolutely amazing how much room there is and the best part is that nothing gets dusty.

I should mention that I didn't bother getting the little legs. The bed frame is the size of a boxspring and my mattress is normal thickness, so the legs would've made the bed too high for my liking. Plus then I would've had to contend with dust collecting under the bed.

I would love to buy an Alsarp but IKEA in their infinite wisdom has stopped doing the 80cm wide one and have never done the 160cm one which I'd like.

I'm getting tired of them finishing lines - they now do bogstandard divans with storage - you can get them anywhere.

How big is the Queen size? Does this mean they do the 160 in the states? Sods law - what would the freight be to the UK??? ;o/

I need someones help regarding the Sultan Alsarp. I bought the full size several months ago but didnt get around to assembling it until this week. I dont have the assembly instructions and IKEA has changed the design. My model does not have the gas shocks (which are in the newer model). IKEA also does not have the old assembly instructions and the parts in the new bed are somewhat different than the older model. If you still have your instructions for assembling the older version of the bed, I would be forever grateful to get a copy. Thank you.

There were NO instructions in the one we purchased tonight. We're hoping that it will be as intuitive as other Ikea furniture. So we got our children to help.....

We bought the queen storage and we love it. I am a small person (5" 2") and its heavy but I don't plan to lift it several times a day. We set the storage unit right on the floor (no legs) put a large queen pillow top matress on it and an Ikea bed frame around it. You don't use the rails this way and it fits and works perfectly!

Hey Alex!

Ironically I have a 6 year old son named Alex who just graduated to a full size bed (took awhile to convince him to give up the toddler bed ;-) ) and after looking around for a bit we decided on the IKEA SULTAN ALSARP. Mainly because the bed *is* a bit big for his room, and getting all that extra storage space would be a major plus for him.

Anyway, we've got a brief writeup about the process at http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/assembly-installation/10646-alsarp-box-spring-hidden-solution-storage.html

and made some comments about some potential snags in the assembly process at http://www.ikeafans.com/forums/ikea-instructions/10441-sultan-alsarp-box-spring-instructions.html#post74949

Hope it works as well for you as it has for *our* Alex!

James

My girlfriend and i bought one of these last night to increase storage space in our studio apartment. We built it last night, and aside from the tedious nature of the project, things went well.

We did buy the taller version of the legs which make the bed very high. We have yet to fill her up with stuff but it should help reduce out of season clothing and other clutter.

A few other thoughts.

- the box is very heavy but fit into my girlfriends Honda Fit. It was a struggle for the two of us to move it even short distances.

- it appears pretty easy to open, even with the queen size mattress. My girlfriend is small and will be able to handle it herself. We don't plan on using it for day-to-day storage.