We have a platform bed but it is like a captains bed with drawers under it so it sits up high as a result.

That said, I'm not really sure why you think your shins would suffer, the bed is stationery and won't move so why would you keep running into it? If it sits low to the ground, a bench IMHO would look awkward.

This is the bed we have. We also have a thick mattress. It's so high, I literally need a foot stool to get in it.

I'm thinking more of beds similar to this, no footboard:

Lower to the ground. Many seem to have concerns about shins, but I've never had one, so I'm not sure how big of a deal it is.

Honestly, just an occasional problem. Usually when carrying a large load of something from the dryer to fold on my folding surface, aka the bed. We love ours and don't bump into it any more than our old bed.

Hi!
I have a bed like that. I have definitely bruised my shins on the side. I've also stubbed my toe numerous times when walking around the bed. I've also scraped my shin on the corner that sticks out (above the leg of the bed).

I should mention that we currently live in a 1 1/2 story bungalow and our bedroom is upstairs, so there's not a lot of room other than the bed. Also, we have to duck to walk around the bed because the ceiling is low. We have a platform bed because a boxspring would not fit up the stairs.

Hope that helps!

I have had the Valencia from PB for eight years. It looks like what you have in mind...

I have no shin injuries or bruises.... after reading the last post, I'm trying to think of why we would have different situations? ... more walking room around the bed? different route to the bathroom in the middle of the night? dunno..... but it has been a non-issue for me.

We have two platform beds and tight walking space around them. When Ds was little and learning to walk, we put up bump guards on them and it has saved our shins on many occasions. It is not at all pretty to look at but it is covered by the bedspread all the time.

We have one & it hasn't been a problem at all. I think it's all about how much room you have to circumnavigate it.

Perhaps it depends on the size of your room? I was visiting a friend in her small San Francisco apartment. Her bedroom has a bed with a footboard kind of like the one lukkiirish posted where there's a cap on the footboard. Her room is small and you have to traverse around the foot of the bed and take a sharp right around the bed to get to the bathroom door. Unfortunately I misjudged the corner trying to walk around and bumped into the bed rather abruptly leaving a very large bruise on my leg. I imagine any other tight passageway around unmovable furniture would have produced a similar result. If your bedroom requires navigating around tightly around furniture, just be aware. If you have plenty of space, you should be fine.

Yes, I bang my shins--mostly on the corner of the footboard-- but we just got this bed, so I"m hoping I'll just learn to walk around it. :) Love our platform bed, despite my injuries!

I think it does depend on the size of your room. Our bedroom on the 1/2 story of our house, so no real ceiling and sloped walls. We don't have room for any furniture other than the bed (and the drawers underneath it).

Most of my injuries occurred during the night (bathroom while pregnant, getting to the baby afterwards). Also, since we store our clothes under our bed, I probably walk around the bed more than most people would.

I don't think this would be an issue in a larger room.

Oh my, the carnage and suffering! Who knew??

Thanks for the advice. Aloha - may I ask what you settled on, sounds like an ideal bed.

DH loves the walnut platform beds so popular these days - I love them to, but think something upholstered might be a safer bet for me.

My room is a decent size. We won't buy the bed until the reno is complete. No problem at all I'm sure if we get a Queen ... but I think I'll miss my King.

Echoing what laurajane said...our bedroom is very small. Only about 3 feet on one side and the foot of the bed and only 1 1/2 feet on the other side. We opened the wall facing the foot of the bed up--was a closet--so now there's the feeling of a bit more room...but still small. If we had a larger room, it would probably be a non-issue.

Sure it's easy to get around when it's daytime, but what about getting back to bed at night when you've just come back from the bathroom or something? Our room is pitch black and I have a permanent line of black and blue on my shins from banging in to the platform at our rental house.

Just what I suspected drbeanie2000, thanks for your input. Perhaps I should be looking for upholstered bedframes then, since I think I have to go platform. Any maybe queen instead of king.

Like Laurajane, I have a platform bed in a 1.5 story cottage (converted schoolhouse, bedroom in former attic). The bed is the Charles Rogers zen bed, with a platform that extends about 8 inches beyond the mattress; the corners are squared off. Very little space to walk around, and I've bruised my shins often. I now try to make conscious effort to walk around the corner carefully. Would I buy the bed again? Probably, but I might consider one without the extended platform.

I don't know that it's only platform beds that are the issue. My black and blue marks are at hip level from running into the foot-board of my sleigh bed. In the middle of the night, I put my hand out and avoid the foot-board - but I collide with it often enough in daylight when I'm in a rush!

Wow, I've pretty much always had platform beds (growing up in Europe there are no box springs), so I never knew it was a safety hazard.) My kids sleep in platform beds and have never ever complained about bumping their shins. Maybe it's genetic?

I have one for my latex mattress and, yup, I smash my shins on the corners more than I'd like. If I could do it over, I'd look for one with rounded, instead of square corners.

I don't think it is genetic, lol, but it could be habit. Maybe you get habituated to it with time, after some suffering. Round corners are a good idea betsyhac. Now I just have to find this upholstered, round cornered, less than 42" high headboard, platform bed. It might take me a while.

Beaniebakes, I went to the Charles Rogers site, lovely beds. The zen bed is gorgeous, but I can see how an extended platform like that could be bad for the shins. Looks fabulous though.

If I get up in the middle of the night, our bedroom is pretty dark too. I've learned to hold my arms out in front and shuffle my feet. Picture a zombie, that's me. And I don't even have a platform bed.

Our bed is also very low, so I do tend to offer my toes to it first. My latest bed-going scheme is to find the glass) door, push it open, shuffle a foot forward, then lean down a fair ways until I can identify the soft part of the bed corner. Then I shuffle my feel using hand-over-hand navigation until I reach the next corner, turn right, and then estimate when I will run into my bedside tables. If the window AC is on, this is trivial because of what seems like the laser beam they emit.

If the platform bed frames lined UP with the bed and didn't protrude a good 4 or 5 inches, that would of course make things easier, especially for anyone returning from the hospital for say heart surgery and who needs very specific conditions to occur in order for that patient to get into and out of bed by themselves withoug stressing their upper bodies. The general idea is to back up to the bed so tht their shins touch the actual bed (not the frame). If that frame is in the way, our doctor recommended a ladder. Basically, they want the patient just to fall back and use momentum to swing their legs over to help them lie flat. That extra platform dimension means that was less than helpful, when my stepdad had to do it a couple of months ago!

Except in this bd when they left their underwear-drawer beds full and then blocked fully two of them.

All probably my fault because I like a dark room to sleep in at night and may have done overkill replacing (temporarily) their COMPLETE LACK OF CURTAINS ANYWHERE...in an air-conditioned-free-house...

The attached link shows my bed, the Chelsea Bed from Hickory Chair. It should have been called the Chew-sea Bed because it eats shins and toes. The two bottom corners are incredibly sharp. Ihave been tempted to go after them with a sander to round them off. I cannot tell you the number of times I have gouged my shins on them. I now keep towels wrapped around each corner to save myself.

Next, notice how the legs flare out. I think it was purposely designed to catch and remove your toes. About the time I get over the pain in my shin, I end up jamming my toes on those legs. It really is so poorly designed.

In it's favor, I will say that it is very pretty. I also like that it stands a bit high so it's easy to get in and out. Nevertheless, it was not one of my smartest purchases.

I also use the one arm out, foot shuffling method to find the bathroom at night. I have to avoid a chest of drawers and be sure the doors to the bedroom and bathroom are open.

Here is a link that might be useful: [Chew-sea bed[(https://www.houzz.com/products/chelsea-bed-by-hickory-chair-furniture-prvw-vr~258832)

I am so glad you posted this Sochi! I had no idea. When DS#1 was about 4 months old and could scoot off the bed we moved our mattress to the floor. I started sleeping so much better!

Then I knew I would never go back to a box spring but that someday I would try a platform bed. Since then we have gotten a new mattress that is 18" deep so it is better then the very short tempurpedic which was really hard to get up from. :)

We have also had DS#2, so we will live with the floor awhile longer. I guess I better start my search for the perfect platform bed now though. I really don't want to sacrifice my toes or shins when I do get one.

Y'all are cracking me up.

Goodness, and people think that cooktops on islands and too close to passageways are dangerous! Who knew?

dedtired, the chew-sea bed is beautiful, but dangerous obviously! I will add no flared out legs to my search for the ideal non-human attacking/maiming platform bed.

boopadboo - I'll let you know if I find something safe(ish)! lol Congratulations on DS#2! I have several reasons for wanting a platform bed (low ceilings primarily), but keeping my now 8 and 5-year old kids from flying off my VERY high sleigh bed is another reason. That said, they survived this long! :)

Re the getting up in the middle of the night, I bought the attached lights. They only activate upon movement, so I just set them up in various spots on the pathway to the bathroom. I wouldn't recommend buying the ones I did, tho, as half of them didn't work (which was indicated in the reviews, but I was impatient and bought them anyway). The ones that did work are great. Small enough to be inconspicuous when sitting around, but nice bright light.

Here is a link that might be useful: Night Lights

A couple of random thoughts on beds...

When I hear the word "platform" I too think of a base that extends beyond the mattress and thus poses a danger to shins (I always wonder if people who design beds ever MAKE beds, as in, put on sheets). Besides danger to shins, the thing I find irritating about these is the danger to toes. I find that, as with kitchen cabinets, I like there to be a "kick" or recess for toes to go. My experience of the genre dates back to water beds, which is something my parents had when I was young, and which we later used for a few years with a normal mattress in it. Those had to extend right to the floor to support the weight of the mattress, and they didn't always do it intelligently.

Our son also sleeps on a platform that we've built out of a 6-foot-long 9-drawer dresser (legs removed) and adjacent plywood box, so there too we have the experience of no toe recess. It's an irritant, but worth it in this case to get the storage.

Any bed that has a box spring can, I think, be adapted to use a platform made of slats or a sheet of plywood instead... at least the ones I've seen can be. Maybe not true of King beds, or at least you'd have to have a centre support... maybe there is one anyway? So if the objective is to lower the height of the bed, often that can be done without changing bedframes. The mattress store I shop at also carries small box springs - no more than 4 inches high - in all sizes.

Because platform beds often extend to the floor all the way around the bed, rather than on legs, I will take the risk of mentioning bedbugs. I live in a big city and they are endemic here - yes, we've had them, and yes, anyone can get them. Having had them, I can say it is an enormous advantage to have a bed with four legs rather than a platform that is basically a box (as per my son's bed). And just for the record, if anyone ever gets them, shoot me an email because I can help cut through the BS to assess how to deal with them (it CAN be done with no pesticides and you DON'T have to throw anything away).

Karin L

I have the same concern. And I wonder why mattress stores display their beds on recessed frames that are out of the way of shins and toes, but nowhere I look can I find a low bedframe that doesn't go all the way to the edge of the mattress or boxsprings. I'm thinking I'll have to make one myself!

I probably cannot count on two hands the number of times I have whacked my shins and knees on the cursed platform beds, and I continue to buy them! My granddaughter has also hurt herself a few times on them.