How to Choose an Upholstered Bed or Headboard

A new year is a good excuse to rethink the bedroom, and the bed is where most of the room's decisions start. It is also the piece people most often buy by the wrong number. They measure for a king mattress, which is 76 inches wide, and the bed that arrives can run 98. They fall for a headboard in a photo, and at home it rises past the windowsill or crowds the ceiling.

An upholstered bed is really two choices bundled together. The headboard is how tall and what outline, and it decides how the bed looks on the wall. The frame is what wraps the mattress, and it decides how much floor the bed takes. Choose them one at a time, then check the two numbers that catch people out at home: how much room is left to walk around the bed, and how high the mattress ends up beside the nightstand.

How tall should a headboard be?

Let the ceiling decide: 52 to 60 inches under an 8-foot ceiling, 60 to 66 at 9 feet, and 66 to 76 at 10 feet or higher.

Height is a choice, not a given, and makers prove it by building the same bed more than one way. The Vanguard Sofia Pleated king comes at 48, 56, 66 and 76 inches, all on the same frame. Massoud offers 52, 60 and 72 in its Custom Choices program. The Bernhardt Morgan comes at 54 and 64, and the Bernhardt Maxime at 58 and 69.

The ranges above are a starting point, and how you use the bed can move you within them. Sit up against a headboard and your head rises about 3 feet above the mattress. With the mattress top at 24 inches, a 60-inch headboard gives you 36 inches to lean on. A 52-inch headboard gives you 28, so you will lean on pillows instead. If you read in bed, go taller.

Poster beds are a separate calculation. The Century Corso runs 90.25 inches to the top of its posts and the Theodore Alexander Kesden poster bed 89.75, so check them against the ceiling, a fan and any light fixture.

What shape of headboard should you choose?

Start with the room: square tops read tailored, curved tops soften a boxy room, and wings add presence along with inches.

Most headboards fall into one of four families:

• Square. A straight top, often with channels or a border. The Century Townsend is a rectangular headboard in three panels.
• Curved or shaped. The Century Gemma has a shaped top, and Massoud offers arch, lune, notch, step and curve alongside its square.
• Wood-framed. An upholstered panel with a wooden edge. The Century Bridgeton and the Vanguard Lillet both trace their outline in wood.
• Winged or shelter. Side panels come forward to wrap the pillows. The word depends on the maker: Bernhardt calls these shelter beds, and Massoud calls them winged.

Wings take up room, so price them in inches. The Massoud king is 81 inches wide and its winged version is 87. The Bernhardt Morgan and Cooper are built at the same two heights, and at 64 inches the Morgan panel bed is 82.25 inches wide while the Cooper shelter bed is 88.

Where should a bed go with windows and art?

On a solid wall if you can; under a window, keep the headboard low, and hang art 4 to 8 inches above the headboard.

A headboard does its best work against an unbroken wall, and the wall between two windows is the next best thing. If the bed has to sit in front of a window, the headboard will rise over the sill. Say the sill is 36 inches off the floor: a 52-inch headboard covers the bottom 16 inches of glass, and a 72-inch headboard covers 36.

Above the headboard, use the same spacing we recommend over a mantel: the bottom of the frame 4 to 8 inches above the top edge, so the two read as one composition. A piece about two-thirds the width of the bed looks settled, which is 54 inches over an 81-inch king. Check the height too. A 72-inch headboard under an 8-foot ceiling leaves 24 inches of wall, and only 16 after an 8-inch gap, so that wall may be happiest left bare.

How much bigger than the mattress is the bed?

More than you would guess: a king mattress is 76 by 80 inches, but the king beds we compared run 81 to 98 inches wide and 84.75 to 107 inches deep.

The mattress is the one fixed number. Everything else is the frame. Here is how far the width alone can travel around the same king mattress:

• 81 inches: the Century Townsend and the Massoud Custom Choices king
• 81.75 inches: the Theodore Alexander Kesden, a wood bed, for comparison
• 83 inches: the Vanguard Sofia Pleated
• 87 inches: the Massoud winged king
• 87.5 inches: the Bernhardt Pemba
• 98 inches: the Bernhardt Loggia

Depth moves too, and the footboard is usually why. The Massoud king and the Kesden are 85 inches deep. The Vanguard Howell has a 27.5-inch-high footboard and runs 98. The Bernhardt Dunhill runs 107, because Bernhardt built the footboard wide enough to sit on.

Queens follow the same pattern around a 60-by-80-inch mattress: the Massoud queen is 65 inches wide, the Bernhardt Morgan 66.25 and the Bernhardt Cooper 72. Before you order, also check the route into the room. Our guide to measuring for furniture delivery covers doors, stairs and turns.

How much room do you need around a bed?

Aim for 30 inches on each side and 36 at the foot, and treat 24 inches as the least that still lets you make the bed.

Those are the same walkway numbers we use in a living room layout, where 30 to 36 inches keeps a path comfortable. Do the math from the bed's overall width. On a 12-foot wall, which is 144 inches, an 81-inch bed leaves 31.5 inches on each side, an 87-inch bed leaves 28.5, and a 98-inch bed leaves 23.

Nightstands need that side room as well. The nightstands we checked run 26 to 44 inches wide, so a 23-inch side would not take even the narrowest of them. Tape the bed's full footprint on the floor, nightstands included, and walk it before you decide. Under the bed, a 9-by-12 rug suits a king and an 8-by-10 suits a queen; our rug size guide shows how to place it.

Do you need a whole bed or just a headboard?

A headboard alone is enough when you already have a metal frame or need the smallest footprint, because it adds only inches to the mattress.

The Massoud Custom Choices king headboard is 81 inches wide and 4 inches deep, comes with cleats for wall mounting, and connects to any standard metal bed frame. The Bernhardt Morgan headboard is 4.13 inches deep, the Vanguard Chatfield 5 and the Vanguard Sofia Pleated 7.5. Wings add depth: the Massoud winged headboard is 12 inches deep and the Bernhardt Cooper 13.75.

What you give up is the upholstered rail and footboard. A metal frame and box spring will show unless the bedding or a skirt covers them, so a whole bed is the tidier choice in a room where you see the bed from the door.

How high should a nightstand be?

Within a few inches of the top of the mattress, so work out the mattress height first.

Mattress height depends on three things: where the slats sit, what goes on them and how thick the mattress is. Among the beds we compared, the slats sit anywhere from 5 inches off the floor on the Bernhardt Loggia to 12.25 inches on the storage version of the Bernhardt Morgan. Take the standard Morgan, with slats at 7.25 inches:

• A 12-inch mattress alone tops out at 19.25 inches.
• On a 5-inch low-profile foundation, it tops out at 24.25.
• On a 9-inch box spring, it tops out at 28.25.

Going without a foundation is what people usually mean by a platform bed, and some frames are built for either choice. Massoud's slats adjust, sitting 2.25 inches below the rail top for a platform and 8.75 inches below it for a box spring. Bernhardt offers an optional slat system for mattress-only use on the Bayonne, Morgan and Maxime. Theodore Alexander recommends a 9-inch box spring with the Kesden.

Now compare the nightstand. Seven of the eight we checked stand 28 to 30 inches high, and the eighth, a 44-inch-wide Vanguard Lillet, stands 35. A 30-inch nightstand sits close to a mattress at 28.25 inches and nearly a foot above one at 19.25. If you love a low platform look, shop for a lower table or expect to reach up for your water.

What fabric holds up on a headboard?

Choose for leaning: a durable weave or a leather you can clean, with the seams settled before you order.

A headboard takes the same contact from the same spot every night, along with hair and skin oils. Start with abrasion. Around 15,000 double rubs is generally fine for everyday use, and 30,000 or more is treated as heavy-duty; our guide to what double rubs mean explains how to read the number. Then check the tag, because the cleaning code tells you what you can use on the spot where your head rests.

Two details are particular to beds:

• Seams. A king headboard is wider than most upholstery fabric. Vanguard notes that non-railroaded fabrics will be seamed on the Howell, Rendition and Lillet, and Massoud places seams at its discretion in leather and unrailroaded fabrics. Ask where the seam will fall.
• Yardage. The Vanguard Sofia Pleated king takes 7 yards of plain 54-inch fabric at 48 inches high, 8 at 66 and 10 at 76, and the Vanguard Howell takes 11. Large patterns can take more, and Vanguard recommends only plain fabrics on the biscuit-tufted Chatfield.

Choosing your own cover is the point of an upholstered bed, and our custom upholstery program starts there. Massoud's Custom Choices beds and headboards come in fabric or leather, and Bernhardt builds the Morgan in both.

Is an upholstered bed better than a wood bed?

Neither is better: upholstery is softer to lean on and comes in the cover you choose, while wood gives a crisper line and no fabric to clean.

Footprint is not what separates them. The Theodore Alexander Kesden, a wood bed veneered in Tamo ash, is 81.75 inches wide, 85 inches deep and 60 inches high, right alongside the slimmest upholstered beds here. The difference is what you feel when you sit up, so a wood headboard usually asks for more pillows. Our best sellers include both, and our guide to caring for wood furniture covers the upkeep.

Where can you see upholstered beds in Kansas City?

At Seville Home in Leawood, where you can lean on a headboard and judge its height in person.

Bring three measurements: your ceiling height, the width of the wall, and the height of the sill if a window sits behind the bed. The floor carries upholstered beds from Bernhardt, Massoud and Vanguard, and our bedroom page is a good place to begin. A bed ordered in your own fabric or leather takes longer, so see how long custom furniture takes if you have a date in mind.

The showroom is at 5205 W 135th Street in Leawood, open Monday through Saturday from 10 to 5. Plan your visit or book a complimentary design consultation, and a Seville Home designer will help you find the bed that suits your wall, your ceiling and the way you use the room.