Look at the pland for beds on ana-white.com if you want underbed storage.

Fairly easy to build, and stylish.

Thanks, lazygardens. Looks like building one is doable and a LOT less expensive!

I have had the Ulitmate bed, a Michigan company, Anderson Manufacturing. Mine was the king size, both sets of drawers with the center drawers, too. (You have the option of getting the bed with one layer of drawers or two.) I had the platform, but used my own mattress. I did not get the side tables or headboard, but used my own padded headboard. These beds are made with real wood, not particle board.

Problems: in a small bedroom, you may not have enough room to open the long end drawers once you have other furniture in the room. I could only open mine halfway. It was okay, since I kept long pleated draperies in there. Since they were in the dry-cleaning bag, it kept them dust-free. Perfect place to store pinch-pleated drapes you don't need in the current home but may need in the next. Other problems were that it was irritating to open the drawers on the sides with the sheets and blankets hanging down. No, I did not tuck in the sides when I made the bed. Also, since I did not use their nightstands, it was impossible to open the top set of drawers on each side without moving what I was using for nightstands. I said "that is where I will store things I don't need very often." Well, it turned out that this is where I stored things that I had no business keeping and should have given away. And my last problem with this bed was that I had two dogs, one sleeping on either side of the bed. That meant that dog fur was building up outside of each side's drawers, so sometimes, between vacuuming, it was not a good idea to open the lower drawers. I guess this can happen for any dresser, but dogs tend to sleep up against our beds, not our dressers, so you might not expect it to be a problem until you get a bed with drawers underneath it, then SURPRISE!

The good points are that these are well-made, easy to assemble drawer units. My mom had one, too, so I had experience with hers, as well. She had a single set of drawers under a bed with a box spring and mattress. She kept her household tools in one drawer and that added up to a lot of weight. The drawer held up very well.

I remember having instructions and a lot of wood pieces that spanned the drawer units and held them the proper distance apart for the long center drawers in my king set. Once I saw the light, assembly was easy. Cost was far less than a set of dressers would have been, and it meant not having to purchase a bed, too. The bed was very comfortable to sleep in. We had a Beautyrest mattress on ours.

Remember when the Midwest had a little rolling earthquake in the mid 1990's? I was home sick that day and lying in bed. I felt that earthquake roll diagonally under my platform bed. So I guess it does a good transfer of plate tectonics, as well.

Wow, Nancy, what an awesome reply! Thank you! I'll take into account what you say and yes, my DH noted the nightstand issue. I'm also wondering if he might be able to make one of these with drawers. He's pretty handy.

Lol, we don't let our dawg in the bedroom. I have enough dog hair everywhere else! Our bedroom is big enough that I think this would work well in some form.

Thanks again for taking the time to weigh in with your experience.