Not every bedroom has the square footage for a huge oversize king mattress, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re stuck choosing a too-small bed, relegating yourself to that dorm mattress life for the foreseeable future.
Whether it’s a semi-truck, a mobile home, tiny house, or any other compact space, if you ditch those standard mattress sizes and consider a space-efficient custom mattress, there’s a whole world of options to choose from.
Types of Custom-Shaped Mattresses for Small Spaces
The bed is the focal point of any bedroom. If you think about it, it’s a focal point of the entire home if you’re living in a studio apartment or an Airstream. Not only does a mattress with modified measurements elevate your sleep experience; it also elevates the design of the room – it’s custom, after all.
But where do you start on brainstorming your cozy-compact bed design? We’ll tell you! Let’s get to it –
Folding/Hinged Mattresses
There are several reasons to consider adding a hinge to your mattress so it can fold. The fact you can make the mattress half its size when not in use makes it versatile for several kinds of small spaces:
A hinged mattress opens up the possibility of underbed storage in RV and van beds, which need to be more than just a square-footage suck.
A small or multi-functional guest room could benefit from a mattress that folds in half to become a couch when it’s not needed as a bed.
In a super-tiny living space like a tiny house or a semi-truck, a folding mattress can allow you (a) to increase storage capacity and (b) make the space feel multifunctional by having a couch-ish option.
Split Mattresses
A split mattress is when something like a king-size mattress comes in two halves. The mattress-maker modifies the two sides of the mattress that meet so there’s no noticeable transition between the two halves when you’re lying in the bed. Split mattresses are convenient for a few reasons:
It’s easier to access underbed storage if you only have to move half of the mattress to set it on the other half.
Moving a mattress into a tight space like a narrow staircase in an old house or an entrance to an RV bedroom is way easier with a mattress that’s made in two pieces.
A mattress with two separate halves gives you the customization options of two mattresses. If your partner needs the support of an extra-firm mattress but you’re more of a medium-firm mattress person, a custom-made split mattress gives you both!
Radius Corner Mattresses
If you’ve ever seen a bed with rounded corners, you were looking at what’s called a radius-corner mattress. Often, we see these in RVs and on platform beds, but curving the corner(s) of a mattress can offer a few advantages:
In bedrooms limited on space, like in RVs, vans or tiny homes, a bed designed with rounded corners gives you a bit more legroom around the bed, and prevents those constant shin bruises from knocking into the corner of the bed when you’re trying to move around.
Platform beds are on-trend right now for their sleek aesthetic and efficient use of space. Custom radius corner mattresses add to this sleekness by offering a tight fit in the platform. No more mattress shifting throughout the night.
The corners of an oversized bed in an undersized room see a lot of abuse, between those knee-knocks and brushing past as you move throughout the room every day. Mattresses with rounded corners means less wear-and-tear, which equals a longer lifespan for the bespoke bed you put so much thought into.
Murphy Bed Mattresses
We love a good murphy bed. Seriously – what’s better than having a whole queen-sized bed always available in a room that’s also easily folded up into a cabinet? Just three of the reasons we love murphy beds are:
It opens up the design and purpose options for a room. Since a murphy bed saves space by folding up onto the wall, no longer appearing like a bed, you can put one in an office, a den, a nursery, etc., but still have the option of a guest bed at any time.
The specialized mattresses for murphy beds can be made thinner than standard mattresses to save space on cabinet depth when the bed is folded away. Don’t worry – minimalist memory foam mattresses still offer great support, cushion and comfort.
Murphy beds streamline the real estate a bed takes up by adding storage capacity to the room that you can access under the mattress. It’s also never a bad idea to add a hinge to a murphy bed mattress to make it super simple to get to that underbed storage.
Sofa Bed Mattresses
Many of us have a pullout couch somewhere in the house. But the thing about standard mattresses sofa beds come with is that they’re often awful. And that kind of takes away from the utility of a convertible couch, because you do everything you can to avoid resorting to using it. Some of us would even rather have guests sleep on an air mattress first.
A mattress made specifically to the measurements of your sofa, couch or loveseat offers a few great things that save on space and comfort:
The custom measurements of the pullout mattress means a perfect fit and fold away.
The way a bespoke mattress maker hinges a sofa bed mattress means no uncomfortable gaps and ridges to mess up a comfortable sleep experience.
The right mattress for a pullout couch gives you more room for an extra guest because you won’t have to avoid using it anymore.
Daybed Mattresses
Daybeds are awesome, especially because they’re often antique heritage pieces, which add character and warmth to a room. But it can be hard to use them as anything more than a focal piece if you don’t have the right size or shape mattress. A space-saving mattress for a daybed can make that vintage craftsmanship pretty and useful:
Upcycle that roll-out trundle bed that’s out of use with a custom-measured memory foam mattress for smaller beds. Voila – an entire other comfy, cozy bed for a guest.
A quality tailored mattress can make a daybed a restful place both day and night; the frame that surrounds the mattress offers similar support to a couch.
A comfy daybed is a great place to take naps without reintroducing yourself to the bed you sleep in at night, which can make it hard to wake up after a nap.
Short Queen Mattresses
A standard queen mattress measures 60” x 80”, where a short queen mattress saves 5 inches of legroom at only 75” long. Translate this to feet and inches, and a short queen bed comes in at 6’3” long. So, we’re obviously not touting these mattresses for tall people, but they’re good for more than a couple other things:
RV bedrooms are small and sometimes the slide out for the bed doesn’t accommodate a regular queen size mattress. A short queen – especially also with radius corners – offers the perfect fit and a bit more elbow room.
Short people in a bedroom short on space? Make the most of the room and take advantage of your height by having a short queen mattress made; save the square footage – you don’t need that extra 5” of length anyway.
If you’re living van life, a shortened queen bed gives you room to spread out but also fits in the limited width of the van. You may need an even more space-efficient queen mattress, like one that’s only 70” or 72” long. Another reason to go custom with your van bed!
Three-Quarter Mattresses
Sometimes called a four-foot bed, ¾ mattresses are most often seen in antique bed frames. Somewhere between a full-size and a short queen mattress, vintage-size mattresses typically measure 48” x 75”, but occasionally they’re only 72” long. Three-quarter mattresses are cool for a few reasons:
Getting a custom ¾ mattress made means you can actually make use of that antique bed frame that’s currently just collecting dust and taking up space.
Choosing a three-quarter mattress instead of a standard queen offers one or two people enough room for a comfortable sleep but minimizes the footprint of the bed.
¾ mattresses are a space-saving option in a mobile home like a van or RV; it optimizes space but isn’t cramped like a full-size bed might be.
Could You Benefit from a Custom-Shaped Compact Mattress?
If any of this resonated with you, now you’ve got a good idea of what’s available. You’re not limited on options, which means you can get as creative as you want with that tiny room. The right ratio of proportions in even a cramped room can make a small area seem more spacious, and the bed is a big part of that.
CustomMattress.com is your one-stop-shop for all things bespoke bed. RV mattresses for short queen beds, hinged mattresses for converted vans, custom daybeds for guest rooms short on space – any sleep spot you want to be as comfy as possible, we can create a mattress solution for it. And as for the custom-shaped bedding you’ll need for your one-of-a-kind mattress? We do that, too.