The bedroom is one of those rooms that is furnished only once and then left there for years, with the intermediate feeling that something is missing but not quite understanding what. The cover is changed, a nightstand is moved, a plant is added. However, the bottom of the bed always remains the same: an empty, somewhat anonymous space, which in the morning collects the clothes from the night before and in the evening gives no visual satisfaction.
THE the bench press is the most effective answer in this problem, and it is for both aesthetic and practical reasons. Aesthetically, a horizontal element at the bottom of the bed completes the composition of the room in a way that no other piece of furniture can: closes the space, gives visual weight to the lower area of the bedroom, creates continuity with the headboard that transforms the bed from an isolated piece of furniture into a complete set. Practically, it offers a place to sit to get dressed, a holder for the next day’s clothes and in many cases storage space for extra pillows, blanketsor anything that otherwise ends up under the bed or in the already overstuffed wardrobe.
But not all stalls are the same. There are purely aesthetic models, with thin legs and a padded seat, designed to give character to the room without adding functions. There are storage benches with lidsso-called chests, which solve the problem of hidden storage. And there are also intermediate solutions, with an open compartment under the seat or a container with an opening seat. The choice depends on how much space you have, how much you want to invest and what problem you want to solve first.
For the minimal camera: IKEA Esseboda
In a room with a neutral palette and basic furniture, a bench that is too noticeable breaks the balance rather than completes it. There IKEA Esseboda solves this problem with turned legs in birch or charcoal finish and a seat in Knäbäck fabric, a blend of cotton and polyester with a soft and structured texture. THE storage space under the seatwith automatic opening, it keeps everything you don’t want to see hidden without adding visual weight to the room. It is a bench that integrates without imposing, and ten year warranty on the structure make it a purchase that is hard to regret.
For the room with a Scandinavian flavor: Cascabel by Maisons du Monde
Raw wood with iron fittings and exposed hinges has a precise character that cannot be faked: it either matches the style of the room or it doesn’t. There Cascabel di Maisons du Mondewith its raw wooden frame and natural linen cover of the lid, it works perfectly in rooms with warm palette and natural materials. It’s a real trunk, with a large compartment for pillows and blankets, and it’s 81cm long: compact enough to fit at the foot of a single bed without dominating the room.
For the contemporary bedroom: the Homcom upholstered bench from Maisons du Monde
Steel legs, cream fabric cover, thick padding. There Panca Homcom available at Maisons du Monde is the type of furniture that always comes to the fore in design hotel catalogs: clean, proportional, with deep and comfortable seat. The internal storage space, with dimensions of 92 x 32 cm, solves the hidden space without being visible from the outside. It costs less than it looks too withstands up to 120 kgwhich is no small detail for those who use it every day to get dressed.
For the modern room: search the Westwing
Westwing has one of the most up-to-date catalogs on current trends, with benches inside greige bouclé, sage green velvet, cognac synthetic leather and brushed brass construction. They are not neutral directory counters: they are precise style choicesdesigned for those who want the bench to be the detail that is noticed first. Westwing’s own advice is to match it to the headboard or bed frame in size and height, so that it looks like a natural extension of the main piece of furniture.
The rule of proportions that almost no one knows
Before choosing the model, it is worth knowing a rule that interior designers systematically use: the bench at the foot of the bed must have width equal to or slightly less than that of the bedand height similar to that of the structure or layer. In this way yes visually embedded rather than floating in space like foreign furniture.
A very narrow bench on a double bed seems forgotten there by mistake. A bench that is too high in relation to the bed breaks the horizontal line that gives continuity to the composition. These are details that cost nothing and that change the final result as much as the choice of model.
