I’m in the market for a new bed, and I find myself drawn to the look of platform beds. So I have a few questions.
Apparently, you don’t use a box spring with a platform bed, right? So is the top surface of the platform hard, or are there springs supporting the mattress? Is there the same level of support that a conventional box spring offers?
Can you use a conventional mattress (e.g. Posturepedic, etc.), or are there special mattresses for platform beds? The pictures I’ve seen seem to have a thinner mattress, like you’d see on a futon.
Is the mattress inset or just sitting atop the platform surface? If it’s sitting on top, what keeps the mattress from sliding around?
There are two schemes I’ve seen; I’ve had three or four of these. One is that there is a supporting frame with a large sheet of wood, generally particle boad, on top, which is what the mattress sits on. No springs.
I don’t know about the pix you’ve seen but you can use a conventional mattress. That’s all I have ever used.
The frame of the bed is a little higher than the surface of the supporting platform. No sliding around.
The kinds that I have used are just a model of simplicity: just a “platform” that you lay a regular mattress of your choice on. They seem to work great. If you think about it, traditional box springs are an overengineered piece of strangeness. The mattress provides the comfort and the box spring should do nothing as long as you are laying still. I lay still most of the time when I am asleep.
Just chiming in to say that I made my own low-lying bed platform with three pieces of plywood (2’ x 3’, or maybe 2’ x 4’) laid to make a rectangle 6’ x 3’ (or 4’), which suits my full-sized mattress fine) and some frickin’ bricks and pavers, carefully stacked under the seams between the boards and near the corners (not actually on the corners; it’s okay to recess them a bit and prevent stubbing your toes!). This arrangement is cheap, easily transported, assembled, and dismantled, and is adjustable for height (just add another layer of bricks).
Re. the bricks and pavers: I noticed when I bought the boards that a couple were slightly bowed. When stacking the bricks, I substituted a few small pavers (which are just slightly taller than bricks) to the central stacks, to accomodate that bowing and prevent the bed from ever sagging in the middle. Here’s an illustration:
corner stack
brick
brick
brick
mid-section stack, under the seam between two boards
paver
brick
brick
corner stack
brick
brick
brick
I’m able to use most of the spaces between the brick stacks for storage, in cheap shoebox-sized plastic containers. No wheels necessary. It’s worked well for me so far, after several years.
Then you are extremely unusual. According to the experts who have studied this, people move around a whole lot while sleeping, especially during certain phases of sleep.
If you really do lay still while sleeping, it might be worth asking your doctor about this.
The platform bed is just another form of bed stead of bed frame.
Use it with or without box springs. I
t usually has a lip to keep the mattress from sliding off onto the floor.
I’m not sure what you mean by “platform bed” because I’ve heard that term describe different things. However, I had a gorilla bed, which I’m not sure are still made, but are fantastic and looked like this . Anyway, it was a loftable platform type bed that ranged from about 3 ft to about 5 ft off the ground, as you preferred. The height could be changed at will, though to do so took about 1/2 hour. It was buildable in less than an hour by 2 people, though 1 person could build it just fine given about 2 hours.
I used a high end 9" thick futon in my bed. One could use a traditional box spring/matress combo, however you would have to use side rails to keep the mattress from sliding off. The other limiting factor would be your ceiling height. Without a boxspring, the platform actually had about a 4" depth to it, which was enough to keep my bed from flinging off into space.
The nice thing was that it conserved space wonderfully. I had a desk, chair, and my dresser underneath, which left a good bit of floor space in my room at the time.
The nasty part was that when lofted above 4’ 2" the entire bed rocked with movement, such as getting in and out, which felt disconcerting, even though it was very solid. An extra set of diagonal stabilizers would have made it not rock, but would have prevented me from putting the desk underneath.
I’d do it again, but I wouldn’t recommend it for people with difficulty with depth perception, pregnant women, or people who could roll off the bed easily (young children, old folks, nightwalkers, etc).