Why our sleep experts loved it
In a showroom, I met the Sophie Conran Seraphine Upholstered Ottoman Bed Frame for the first time, and let’s be honest, I didn’t fall in love. There is something about the overstyled overall effect – the big romantic valance skirt, super soft and cuddly pillow headboard, and bows upon bows – that makes it look more like a prop from a boutique hotel than an everyday bed. If your taste runs clean, modern, pared back, it is a shock. Add a premium price tag starting from about £999 for the double plus a quoted 9 to 12-week delivery window, and this is not an impulse purchase. This is a Sophie Conran Seraphine, considered, practical and with rather good storage.
But! Underneath the dramatic looks there is a serious ottoman base with genuinely useful storage and a solid platform mattress base. So it became a struggle between head and heart: on the one hand, it works as a bed; on the other, it looks so, so divisive. If you already know you hate the new Sophie Conran range, the Seraphine is not going to change your mind. It might at least make you pause because of the underbed storage.
Design & build The Seraphine is an upholstered ottoman bed frame that comes in three sizes, 4'6 double, 5'0 king and 6'0 super king, in two colours, Linen and Olive. On paper they sound quite soft, but in person, that sweeping curves, pillows, and full skirt give the whole piece a lot of visual heft. In the Olive especially, the colour reads strong and saturated under bright showroom lights, and the bows on the corners give it an almost theatrical, almost dressy quality.
The headboard is the main event: a big, pillowed arched back design with two plush cushions built in. It curves in at the sides of the mattress, which adds to the cocooning look and makes the bed feel like a little niche within the room. Below, the frame is wrapped in a romantic valance-style skirt that drapes to the floor, hiding the ottoman base and any clutter stored under the bed. If you love that layered, fabric-first English country house aesthetic, it will probably charm you. If you are a clean lines and like to see the legs of your furniture kind of person, it will likely feel fussy and overdone.
Construction-wise, Dreams describes the Seraphine as being upholstered in a highly durable woven fabric, with solid platform top ottoman base. The fabric has a slightly textured upholstery-grade feel to it that looks as though it was meant to withstand actual use rather than be precious or overly delicate. On the showroom model I saw, the seams were neat, and the fabric pulled taught around the edges without obvious ripples or bagging, which is reassuring at this price point.
The bed comes in four separate packages, with the heaviest being about 42kg. This is not a flimsy frame, and the overall impression in person is a substantial, robust base wrapped up in an undeniably statement-making outfit.
Assembly & setup Because it is an ottoman with solid platform base, you are working with multiple large, heavy parts and a lifting mechanism, so this is not a bed frame I would personally want to assemble by myself. The box weights alone suggest you really need two capable adults and a clear room, and if you have stairs or tight turns to navigate getting the parts into the bedroom will be half the job.
As with most ottomans, the bit that tends to require the most fine-tuning is aligning the platform section with the storage box so that the lift mechanism works smoothly and closes flush. It is entirely normal for this style of bed, but it is still worth bearing in mind. Dreams also offers an assembly service for a fee, which may well be money well spent here if you are not confident with large flat-pack jobs.
The delivery lead time is also worth noting. Dreams is currently quoting 9 to 12 weeks with no firm date until checkout. It strongly suggests this is not a frame they have in stock ready to ship, so if you need a bed in a couple of weeks, this is going to be a non-starter. For something at this price, the length of wait can feel especially frustrating.
Comfort & practicality With a bed frame, comfort is really about how the base feels under your chosen mattress, and how nice it is to sit up against the headboard. The Seraphine scores quite well on both of those points, even if I have some misgivings about the styling.
The solid platform top base gives a firm even surface across the entire mattress area. It makes a soft mattress feel slightly firmer and more supported with fewer pressure points and less bounce than a sprung slat base. If you or your partner are different weights, it can also help minimise the roll-together effect you sometimes get with slatted bases. The flip side is that it reduces airflow under the mattress compared with widely spaced slats, so this kind of base can feel a touch warmer overnight, particularly with dense foam mattresses.
Where the Seraphine really shines, if you will excuse the pun, is the headboard. The pillow-back style with built-in plush cushioning feels genuinely comfy to lean against. If you are the type to spend a lot of time reading or scrolling in bed, having that soft, slightly curved surface supporting your shoulders and neck makes a noticeable difference compared with a flat upholstered board. It is a nice balance of support and give, so you are not just propped against something hard with fabric over the top.
Practicality is more nuanced. The long skirt hides everything underneath, which is lovely for visual calm but not so much for cleaning. It will pick up dust on the floor, and if you have pets you can rest assured hair and fluff will cling to the fabric. You will be running a vacuum nozzle or lint roller along the hem as part of your regular cleaning routine. The decorative bows on the corners are pretty, but they are another detail that will gather dust and could snag a vacuum head or be tugged on by small children.
Storage The ottoman aspect of the Seraphine is, for me, its best feature. It is an end-opening ottoman bed with about 23cm of internal storage depth, which essentially gives you the full under-mattress cavity to play with. That is enough for spare duvets, pillows, seasonal clothing or shallow storage boxes, but not quite deep enough for tall suitcases if you want to store them upright.
The lift mechanism is supported by a safety bar that locks into place when the base is raised, so you are not relying purely on the lift system to keep the mattress up while you rummage underneath. In practice, that makes the storage feel much safer to use, especially if you are lifting a heavy mattress or reaching in for longer to rearrange things. The platform rises from the foot end, which is best if you have clear access there; if your bed is pushed tight against a wall or radiator at the foot, it will be less convenient.
Because the base is solid, the storage cavity is essentially a large, empty box. It does not have fancy dividers or lining, so I would personally use fabric bags or boxes inside to keep items organised and protected from scuffs. Still, if you are short on space, the sheer amount of extra storage this ottoman provides is very useful and one of the few elements that genuinely earns its keep in a smaller bedroom.
Everyday use Once assembled, the Seraphine feels reassuringly solid. The platform base and weight of the whole structure mean it is stable when you sit on the edge or roll over, and in the showroom model I tried, there were no obvious creaks or flexes in the frame. It is exactly what you would hope for from a bed marketed as more premium designer collaboration.
Visually, however, everyday life with this bed is going to depend entirely on how you feel about its character. In a large, light room with other romantic or traditional pieces, the sweeping headboard and valance could create a very curated, intentional look. In a typical British bedroom that is already a crowded assemblage of wardrobes and drawers, it runs the risk of making the space feel more cluttered and overdecorated, particularly in the bolder Olive colourway.
The full skirt also means you lose the airy look of seeing space below the bed. You cannot slide a vacuum or robot cleaner beneath to quickly tidy up; you will be working around the skirt rather than gliding in under the frame. If you are a minimalist and like your furniture to visually recede, this is not that kind of piece.
In its favour on the practical side, the ottoman storage does slightly offset the visual fussiness by letting you clear other parts of the room. You may be able to reduce the number of storage boxes or drawers in the space, which in turn can help the room feel calmer once you have got used to the bed itself.
Final verdict The Sophie Conran Seraphine Upholstered Ottoman Bed Frame is not a crowd-pleaser, and it does not seem to be trying to be. It is a highly stylised statement ottoman bed that takes a very particular romantic aesthetic, pairs it with a solidly practical storage base, and tops it with a really comfy pillow back headboard. The build feels solid, the woven upholstery looks durable, and the end-opening ottoman with 23cm of storage and safety bar is genuinely practical.
Set against that is a design that is deeply polarising, especially if you are not into bows, valances, and strong fabric colours. The price is firmly at the premium end for an upholstered ottoman, and a 9 to 12 week delivery estimate means it is a slow, not an impulse purchase. When you can buy simpler, clean-lined ottoman frames for substantially less, it is hard to argue that the Seraphine is good value unless you absolutely love the look.
In short, this is a bed frame for people who have fallen in love with Sophie Conran’s particular, nostalgic fabric-rich style, and are willing to wait and pay for that vision in their bedroom. If, like me, you find the colours and detailing garish rather than joyful, the ottoman base may be the only redeeming feature, and you would probably be better off with a more understated storage bed elsewhere in the Dreams range.
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