When I think of having arrived -- of having made it, or fully manifested into adulthood or whatever -- I picture even floors and airy, spindly-legged furniture. Under this furniture, just empty space. In this fantasy, there are no "storage ottomans," no furniture pulls more than one "duty," and beds are free to be giant, space-saving blobs, with nothing -- not so much as a stray sock -- stored beneath them.

That is not, however, currently the case. In the here-and-now of this lifetime, in this city, in this apartment, under-bed storage is a must. We have embraced it with gusto, and you can, too. Here're some ways:

1. Make Friends with Someone Crafty.

You may remember that my dad built Lou's bed from scratch. We worked out a modular design composed of three units we could put together or leave separate. My dad just sort of made this up off a drawing I gave him, so I don't have plans for ya, but Anna White does, and the Internet is replete with IKEA Kallax hacks (exhibits 1, 2 & 3) that provide the same result with less math on your part. In any event, our modular solution provided room to grow --

Lou's storage bed at toddler size (and before it was painted white)

And lots of storage room. Though I've tried a few different options, baskets are the best way to use these deep cubbies. These baskets have held dress up clothes and barbies and blocks and more; they currently hold clothes for Lou to grow into, laundry, pajamas and doll gear. (That's on the accessible side. On the side against the wall, they're jammed with Bret's 90s tee shirt collection, early 00s floppy disk collection, and mid 'aughts law school syllabi collection. We don't access all of that all that often. And hey, JFTR, I'm not throwing shade at Bret. I have my (equivalent of) 90s tee shirt collections stashed around here somewhere too.).

2. Cram Storage Even Under Small Spaces -- And Make it Accessible

Moving on to our next bed -- West's crib. Well, it's a toddler bed at the moment, but you know, it's a crib. Even here, we need to squeeze out a little storage. Some low baskets would also do the trick, but I'm actually happy with this drawer here. I found it on the street, by itself (just chillin' on the curb, like drawers do in Brooklyn), attached some felt pads to the bottom to help it slide easily back and forth, and, well...now it holds Hess Trucks. An obscenely large collection of Hess Trucks.

Our version of this, for $50 total (that's what we paid for the secondhand crib -- this one from Eicho), may not be everyone's cup of tea. But they make cribs with drawers, and I think they look great and offer really, really great storage. Extra linens, diapers, clothes they're going to grow into or have already moved beyond -- babies have a lot of stuff. Even if I did live in a house with an embarrassment of space riches, I'd still opt for a crib with storage underneath. The handiness of it really gets me at hello.

I'm particularly fond of this straight-legged two-tone version, but it seems to be sold out. Still, here's the all-white version, and here's a more classic vibe, for a great price, if you're in the market.

3. Invest in a Storage Frame.

A couple months ago, Bret and I purchased this bad boy. What are we looking at here, exactly? It's our new storage bed. There are a bunch of options for storage under big beds, of course, from built in drawers to murphy-style hinges that allow you to lift the entire bed off a a storage compartment. We looked around, and -- surprise -- went for an option we thought offered a lot of bang for our buck. I did All the Research, and a fair amount of hemming and hawing, and we went with this version, but there are lots of options for these metal frames. The elevated bed frame allows you to ditch your box spring, and reclaim all the space it was taking up. We chose the 14" drop because we like a normal height bed. (Poor Westley already has to be hoisted in, crane-style, or catapulted in from across from the room). But they sell up to 18" drops, which offer some serious storage. As it is, we cram a lot of stuff under here. It's amazing how much more space you have when you ditch the box spring.

Double the storage space with a storage frame bed

This shot, above, of the other side of the bed, illustrates the doubling of storage space beneath our bed nicely. (It also illustrates that we only have so many pretty baskets to devote to a place where you can't see 'em anyway). Where only one of these plastic bins fit in the space under our bed before, now I can stack two. It's a huge improvement! We keep a TON of stuff under here: out-of-season clothes, baby gear, even my (absurdedly large) nail polish collection. It's pretty great. We did lay some 1/2" sheets of plywood on top of the frame, to firm things up a bit, but I think that's a personal preference. Once you add in the plywood especially, it's not a totally pretty sight, but that's easily remedied:

A $3 bed skirt is the obvious way to go here. This is actually a high-quality bed skirt, from Waverly via Goodwill, but I'm keeping an eye out for one that's gray or deeper taupe, to have it go better with the headboard, in the hopes that the whole affair will look like a platform bed one day.

So, those are three ways in which we cram more stuff into our apartment, by reclaiming space our beds were hogging. We're pretty happy with these solutions. And if, one day, I can luxuriate knowing I'm sleeping on top of nothing but kiln-dried hardwood or something, well, that'll be cool. 'Til then, this is great.

Happy sleeping,

Sam

PS -- NYCers: Gothamist is back!