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Beds fit. It's the walking round them that doesn't.

Will a king fit in a 12 × 12 room? Enter your bedroom size and bed size — this bed clearance checker counts the frame, works out the real walk-around space on every side, and names the largest bed the room actually wants.

Measure the room wall to wall. Clearances here are pure wall arithmetic — closets, windows and the door swing decide the real answer, which is exactly what placing it on your own plan checks.

    The three numbers that decide it

    01

    The bed is bigger than the mattress

    Mattress sizes are standardised; bedrooms are not, and beds are not either. A frame adds 2–5″ on each axis, so a "queen bed" on a floor plan is not 60 × 80 — with a typical frame it is closer to 65 × 85, and a wingback headboard or a storage footboard adds more. When you shop a real bed, the listing's outer frame dimensions are the numbers that matter.

    SizeMattress W × LNotes
    Twin38 × 75kids, bunks
    Twin XL38 × 80dorm standard; two make a split king
    Full / Double54 × 75one adult, honestly
    Queen60 × 80the American default
    King76 × 80as wide as two twin XLs
    California King72 × 84narrower, longer
    02

    The clearances a bedroom needs

    • Bed sides: 24–30″ each side — enough to walk, make the bed, and open a nightstand drawer. 36″ where a side doubles as the main path through the room.
    • The foot of the bed is a walkway and takes a walkway's numbers: 36″ where it is the route, never under 30.
    • Dresser front: 36″. An open drawer is about 26″ of it and you stand in the rest. Dressers run 48–72″ wide × 18–20″ deep — so one commits around 56″ of the wall it faces.
    • Nightstands: 18–32″ wide, set 0–12″ from the bed. Flush is correct — that is a documented pairwise convention, not a compromise, and it is why a nightstand tight against the mattress is not a clearance failure.
    • Door swings. A 30–36″ door sweeps a quarter-circle of its own width, and furniture cannot live in it.
    03

    Room by room, honestly

    These verdicts are the ones our bedroom guide publishes — pure wall arithmetic, with the dresser counted. The calculator shows you the row that matches your room alongside its own answer, because the arithmetic is the floor and the guide is the advice.

    RoomLargest bed that worksWhat the math says
    10 × 10Fullfull leaves ~31″ per side; a queen drops that to ~27″ with no wall left for a dresser beside it
    10 × 12Queenthe standard secondary bedroom: queen on the 10′ wall, dresser opposite the foot
    11 × 13Queen, king tightqueen plus dresser and a chair; a king works only with clear side walls
    12 × 12King — conditionally~31″ per side if nothing else lives on those walls; the door swing is the judge
    12 × 14Kingking plus dresser without squeezing the walkways
    13 × 15 +King + extrasprimary-suite territory: bench at the foot, chair, double dressers
    04

    The worked example: a king in a 12 × 12

    A king with frame is about 81″ wide on a 144″ wall — 63″ left, a comfortable 31½″ per side. Then add a 20″-deep dresser and its 36″ of standing room to one side wall and you have committed 56″ of it: the bed slides off-centre, one side drops to the minimum, and whether the door still opens decides everything.

    That is a lot of arithmetic for one corner of one room, and it is the reason this tool exists — and the reason the app draws it instead. Full write-up: Bedroom sizes — what fits and bed sizes & clearances.

    !

    What the arithmetic cannot see

    Everything above is wall math, and wall math is the easy half. A real bedroom has a closet door that swings, a window you would rather not headboard over, a radiator, and an entry door whose quarter-circle lands exactly where the nightstand wanted to be. Those are the things that actually decide a layout, and none of them are in a room's width and length.

    So the verdict here is a floor, not a promise: if the arithmetic fails, the room fails. If the arithmetic passes, the plan still gets a vote. That is what Poché is for — the same clearances drawn on the drawing you already have, with the door swings in place.

    Questions people actually ask

    Will a king bed fit in a 12 × 12 room?

    Conditionally. A king mattress is 76 × 80″ and a typical frame adds 2–5″ per axis, so plan it at about 81 × 85. On a 144″ wall that leaves 63″ to split between the two sides — a comfortable 31″ each, if nothing else lives on those walls. Add a 20″-deep dresser and its 36″ of standing room and you have committed 56″ of one wall: the bed slides off-centre, one side drops to the minimum, and the door swing decides whether it works at all.

    How much space do you need around a bed?

    24–30″ beside the bed on each side — enough to walk, to make the bed, and to open a nightstand drawer. Make it 36 where a side doubles as the main path through the room. The foot of the bed is a walkway like any other: 36″ where it is the route, and never under 30. A nightstand itself sits 0–12″ from the bed, and flush is correct.

    What size bed fits a 10 × 12 bedroom?

    A queen. It is the standard secondary bedroom: put the queen on the 10-foot wall and it leaves about 27″ each side, with 59″ opposite the foot — room for a dresser. A king will physically work if you turn it, headboard on the 12-foot wall, at about 31″ a side and 35 past the foot; but that layout leaves no wall over 56″, which is what a dresser and its open drawer need. The bed is rarely what runs out of room. The dresser is.

    Does the bed frame count?

    Always. Mattress sizes are standardised and beds are not: a frame adds 2–5″ on each axis, so a queen bed on a floor plan is not 60 × 80 but closer to 65 × 85. A wingback headboard or a storage footboard adds more again. When you shop a real bed, the listing's outer frame dimensions are the numbers that matter, not the mattress size on the box.

    How much room does a dresser need in front of it?

    36″. An open drawer is about 26″ of that and you stand in the rest. Dressers run 48–72″ wide × 18–20″ deep, so a dresser commits its depth plus 36 — around 56″ of the wall it faces. That single figure is why a queen fits a 10 × 12 room and a king does not: it is not the bed, it is the dresser.

    Can a bed go against a wall on one side?

    Yes, and in a child's room or a small guest room it is often the right answer — it buys the whole clearance back for one open side. The cost is that the bed can only be made from one side, which most adults sharing a bed will not accept for long. The calculator reports the pushed-to-the-wall figure alongside the centred one so you can see what the trade buys.

    Skip the arithmetic.

    Upload the plan you already have, drop a king with real frame dimensions into the actual room, and watch the clearance halos do this whole page for you — door swings included.

    Try it on your plan →