Many will easily consider their bed their most important piece of home furniture. Consequently, for most people, a great deal of thought goes into choosing the right bed.
In a bid to optimize for comfort and design, we often have to weave through a host of brand offerings, bed dimensions, mattress materials, firmness levels, color options, and warranty coverages.
However, one frequently overlooking characteristic that can significantly impact your user experience is the height of your bed. How tall your bed is can affect your comfort level, the ease of getting in and out of bed, how good your bed looks, and how much extra storage you have in your bed.
Consequently, raising beds to make them higher is a typical hack employed by many home improvers to create a more ergonomic and aesthetic bed while scoring some extra storage space in the process.
For people in compact homes, a raised bed can provide crucial space for your belongings or for fitting a trundle bed that will come in handy when you have guests sleeping over.
However, for people who already have shorter beds, you do not need to replace your bedroom furniture to enjoy these potential benefits. With a few small tools and some minor DIY-ing, you can quickly raise your bed without needing professional help.
How to Make Your Bed Higher (4 Ways)
When it comes to raising your bed, you have several easy to use options available to you. One of the popular methods is to use dedicated bed risers. Alternatively, you can increase your bed height with a wedge, by attaching wheels to your bed frame, or by adding a mattress topper to your setup.
#1 Bed Risers
Bed risers are one of the best ways to add more height to your bed as they are easily accessible, easy to use, and you get to choose from a wealth of available color, material, and height options.
There are three main types of bed risers you can use:
Plastic: These bed risers are the most common and often the easiest to install. Plus, plastic bed risers are available in an abundance of color options, making it significantly more comfortable for you to find one that works with your home aesthetic. However, plastic risers are also the least durable of the lot.
Metal: Metal risers bring increased stability and durability over the plastic option. Furthermore, some metal risers have adjustable height profiles, allowing you to make your bed go higher or lower, whenever you want. However, metal risers often have limited compatibility with the various types of bedposts.
Wood: Wooden risers provide yet another durable alternative that often brings excellent aesthetics to your bed setup. You can buy prefabricated options or build your own wooden riser.
Tips: You can check the best seller of bed riser on Amazon
How to Use Bed Risers to Increase Your Bed Height
Choosing the Right Bed Risers
Material: You can choose between plastic, wood, or metal bed risers. We recommend you opt for metal risers as they offer some of the best durability potentials. Wooden risers are excellent too and can bring superior aesthetics, but they often cost slightly more than metal.
Height: Select a riser that matches the amount of elevation you want to add to your bed. Bed risers typically range between 1-12 inches in height. With plastic risers, you can often also stack them to add more height.
Weight Requirement: bed risers also come with different carrying capacities. Check the product details or packaging to ensure that the riser you select can support the total weight of your bed plus users.
Size: Check the dimensions of the risers as well, and ensure that they are wide enough to fit your bedposts.
Aesthetics: You want to select risers that will match your room colors.
Tip: You can conceal off-color risers with long sheets or a bed skirts
Installing Your Bed Risers
To raise your bed with bed risers:
- First, secure the help of a family member or friend to aid you in the setup process. Installing bed risers requires lifting of your bed frame, a feat that will be significantly safer and easier with help.
- Next, remove your mattress from its frame and place it out of the way
- Lift one corner of your bed frame, have your helper line up the riser underneath it, then gently guide the bedpost onto the riser. Ensure that the frame sits firmly in place before proceeding.
- Repeat this process for all three bedposts, double-checking to ensure the beds sits securely
- Place your mattress back on the frame
- Enjoy your new raised bed.
#2 Bed Wedge
Bed wedges can provide an innovative way to raise your bed for enhanced comfort. These bed adjusters fit under the head of your bed, giving it a vertical lift that elevates your head and neck over the rest of your body.
This incline setup that you get with a bed wedge provides a configuration that is more conducive to people with health conditions like back pain, respiratory disorders, spinal injuries, or sleep disorders like sleep apnea.
You can choose from a wide variety of bed wedges, with everything from a basic wooden slab to adjustable wedges that you can control with a remote to match different height requirements.
Recommendation: The Wellness Wedge offers a 2-in-1 wedge pack for your bed that fits underneath your mattress, can be stacked vertically or side-by-side for a comfortable elevation of two and a half inches or five inches.
Installing Bed Wedges
For maximum ease and safety, you will need at least two helpers to install bed wedges
- Remove your mattress from the bed frame and ensure it is entirely out of the way
- With the aid of one helper, simultaneously lift the two top ends of your bed frame, then, get the other helper to slide the bed wedge(s) underneath them, sliding it in until it is in line with both bedposts
- Gently guide the bedposts onto wedge(s) and ensure it sits on tight before you proceed
- Place your mattress back on the frame
- Enjoy your bed’s new elevation and incline.
#3 Mattress Topper
If you don’t want the hassle of installing the bed risers or a wedge and don’t need the extra space underneath your bed, you could opt instead for a simple mattress topper to add some height to your bed.
Mattress toppers are super easy to install, and hence, are an excellent choice for seniors or people with debilitating medical conditions like arthritis. Furthermore, mattress toppers can also help to significantly boost your sleeping experience as they are often softer, more conforming, and provide more airflow than your regular mattress.
However, mattress toppers won’t add as much height as bed risers or wedges as most are only a few inches high.
Recommendation: The LUCID 3-inch Gel Memory Foam Mattress Topper offers a super comfy 3-inch topper for your bed that brings increased pressure relief. Thanks to its gel-infused memory foam construction, this mattress topper also provides more airflow than your regular memory foam mattress, ensuring you sleep cool through the night.
Installing a Mattress Topper
- Remove the mattress topper from the packaging, and remove the air seal if any with a pair of scissors
- Allow the topper some time to expand and off-gas fully. Give the topper between 12-24 hours to fully air out and grow to full size to avoid any intense smells
- Place the topper directly on top your bare mattress
- Replace your mattress protector if any
- Make your bed as typically would, and enjoy the new height and feel.
#4 Wheels
If you only need a few extra inches in height, adding wheels to your bed frame can be another innovative solution. With wheels, you also gain the added convenience of increased maneuverability.
With wheels, you move your bed out of the way for thorough vacuuming or rearrange your bedroom layout without much hassle.
However, ensure that your bed skirts or sheets are long enough to cover the wheels, as wheels can be incredibly unaesthetic when left exposed.
Tip: If you are worried about your bed inadvertently moving around, opts for wheels that include a locking mechanism.
Installing Wheels on Your Bed
To fix wheels onto your bed, you need screw-on casters wheels. These wheels come with a flat plate that holds the caster mechanism which you can screw onto the bottom of your bed posts
- First, remove your mattress and ensure it is out of the way
- Next, turn your bed frame upside down and locate an available surface for your caster wheel (Ensure that the caster wheel matches the open space or opt instead for a more extensive, smaller, or different type caster wheel as needed)
For poster types:
- Drill the post holes in the frame
- Fit the receiving cylinders into the pits, per the manufacturer’s instruction
- Place each poster caster into the matching cylinder and push in until it locks in
For screw-on types:
- Drill in screw holes for the caster rims
- Line up each flange and screw it on firmly
Once you complete the appropriate process, you are good to go.
- Now, turn the bed frame right side up
- Gently roll the frame to the appropriate position
- Place your mattress back on the frame and enjoy
Tip: When moving beds or other heavy furniture, always keep your hands around the midpoint to avoid overbalancing the structure.
