WFMW - Bed platforms instead of bed frames

Edited: Several have asked about photos. I will take some as the hubby builds this platform and will post them in a day or two when it's finished.

We've always lived in fairly small places so storage (or lack thereof) is an issue. My hubby came up with an idea some years back that really helped in our bedroom. We replaced the bed frame with a bed platform. The hubby built it so it had a solid plywood top supported by a frame consisting of one middle support going down the center of the bed lengthwise and perpendicular supports every 18" or so. This was a seriously heavy duty platform because at the time we had a king-size waterbed mattress (the kind with multiple tubes).

Because it was just the mattress, the platform could be higher than a bed frame and we had lots of storage space underneath. Forget those wimpy little bins made for underbed storage. We bought large plastic bins 14" high that easily fit into the cubby holes and allowed us to store great quantities of things! A bedskirt kept things hidden but didn't impede access.

This worked so well that now the hubby is building bed platforms for our bed and the guest bed. Since we brought queen-size Select Comfort Sleep Number mattresses with air chambers instead of tubes of water, the platform doesn't have to be quite so hefty. So we won't have as many cross supports and cubby holes but the cubby holes we do have will be larger. Again, we will only be using the mattresses and not the box springs so the platforms can be pretty high.

So that's my tip for Works For Me Wednesday. Any of you with handy hubbies who like to build things, for very little outlay of cash you can build yourself a storage unit that doubles as a bed ☺