If you’ve been looking at our upholstered beds, you may have noticed that we ask customers to confirm depth of their mattress so we can adjust the mattress gap. Upholstered beds have a protruding, padded headboard for extra comfort when sitting in bed. They also offer a different style to our trademark all-timber beds, and are available in a range of colours and fabrics. In this article, we’ll break down what we mean when we refer to the ‘mattress gap’ on these beds, along with why it’s important to consider when purchasing an upholstered bed.

What is a mattress gap?

Essentially, the mattress gap is the space between the slats of our bed bases and the bottom of the headboard. This is the gap that your mattress will fill when it is placed on the bed. As standard at the moment, all our beds are made to suit mattresses that are approx. 20cm in depth. However, we can alter them to suit deeper mattresses if needed.

At the time of writing, our pricing structure for mattress gaps is as follows;

  • For mattresses up 25cm in depth, our beds can be adjusted free of charge
  • For mattresses between 26-30cm in depth, there is a £50.00 charge to cover the cost of the additional timber needed
  • For mattresses that are deeper than 30cm, we would need to provide a custom quote. Please contact us if this is something you’d require!
Cosy concrete bedroom featuring our hand-made Highland solid wood upholstered 4 Poster bed in cherry

Why should I alter the mattress gap?

If the mattress gap is not altered to suit your mattress, an upholstered headboard can push the mattress off the foot-end of the bed. As mentioned, our beds are designed with a mattress gap of approx. 20cm as standard. For example, if you were to place a mattress of 28cm deep on such a bed, there would be 8cm of mattress above the mattress gap. This overlap means that the mattress would sit in front of the padded headboard, rather than below it. This would cause the padded headboard to push the mattress off the end of the bed slightly.

The tall upholstered and buttoned Skye bed headboard
The Skye bed made in walnut with a tall buttoned wool-upholstered headboard autumnal bedroom look
This Skye bed is pictured above with a deep mattress. On the left, you can see the mattress overlaps the headboard.
On the right, you can see that it is pushed off the end of the bed slightly.

What if I don’t alter the bed?

There is nothing structurally wrong with placing a deeper mattress on a bed that has not been altered. Likewise, if you were to purchase a deeper mattress in the future, you wouldn’t necessarily need to purchase a whole new bed to suit. It just means that you may end up covering more of the upholstered headboard. As mentioned above, the mattress may sit just off the end of the bed (though only by a couple of centimetres in most cases).

We are able to change our upholstered bed bases to suit most mattress depths. This not only means you can avoid the mattress being pushed off the end of the bed, but also means that your bed will appear in the way it is intended; with the most amount of headboard on show above your mattress.

Side view showing the Upholstered Bloomsbury bed Headboard and Oak frame
This Bloomsbury is a good example of how we expect a bed to look when made to suit a mattress of a certain depth.
You can see that the mattress sits below the headboard, just within the mattress gap.

How do I inform you of my mattress depth?

There are a few different options to get in touch with us regarding this. If you’d like to place your order online, you can leave a note at checkout detailing your mattress depth. Please do bear in mind that if your mattress is deeper than 25cm, we will then contact you to pay the £50.00 charge for adjustments of this nature. If your mattress is deeper than 30cm, we would advise getting in touch with us via email. We would then be able to provide a custom quote, which you could review before going ahead with your purchase.

Furthermore, there are options for the way in which we alter our beds to suit the mattresses. Depending on the design you choose and what you’re wanting to achieve, we may be able to accommodate. You can get in touch with us to discuss your ideas, and for a custom quote.

Please do keep in mind that beds adjusted to suit mattresses of 26cm and above are classed as custom. You can read all about custom orders in our Terms & Conditions.

Hopefully this post has answered some of your questions around mattress gaps! We have been making these adjustments for a number of years, and you can always contact us if you have any questions. You can also reach us via Facebook and Instagram if you’d prefer!