SONGMICS Storage Ottoman Bench vs A Wooden Storage Bench From Target: Which Is Worth It?

Here is the short answer, before the long one. If you want somewhere to sit down while you put your shoes on, and you want two blankets and a stack of out-of-season sweaters out of sight, the SONGMICS folding storage ottoman bench is the one that does that job. If what you really want is wooden furniture at the foot of the bed that looks like it came with the house, the wooden storage bench from Target is the one that looks the part. Those are two different wants, and the trouble starts when you buy one expecting it to be the other.

I bought the SONGMICS bench in April 2026 for the foot of my bed and I have lived with it for about seven months now. The wooden bench is not mine. I have stood in the Target aisle with my hand on the lid more than once, and my sister Donna has a painted wooden storage bench at the end of her guest bed in Louisville, so I have sat on it, opened it, and heard what it sounds like when it shuts. I am not going to pretend I ran a lab test. I am going to tell you what each one is good at and where each one would wear you out.

	SONGMICS Storage Ottoman Bench	Wooden Storage Bench from Target
What it costs	The lower of the two by a wide margin	Noticeably more for solid wood and a painted finish
Setup	Unfolds in seconds, no tools	Flat-pack assembly, an evening and a screwdriver
Sitting on it	Padded top, 15 inch seat height, rated to hold up to 660 lb	Hard wood top, fine to perch on for a minute
Storage inside	31.7 gallons, one open space across 43.3 inches	The lid hardware sits inside the box and eats into the opening
Looks next to 1978 woodwork	Soft and tidy, reads as a nice fabric box	Wood grain and paint, reads as furniture
Wear over ten years	Wipe clean only, the surface cannot be repaired	Can be sanded down and repainted
Everyday cleaning	Wipe with a damp cloth	Wipe with a damp cloth
Moving it or storing it flat	Folds flat, one person can shift it	Heavy, does not fold, takes two people

Where the SONGMICS Storage Ottoman Bench Wins

Three things, and they are the three that come up every single morning before I have had my coffee.

Setup. The bench came folded flat in a box on the front porch and it opened in seconds. No tools, no screws, no little bag of hardware to lose behind the sofa. Gary was at work and I did not need him, which is not something I can say about most things that arrive in a box. A wooden bench is the other kind of afternoon. It comes in pieces, it wants a Phillips head and a diagram, and if your knees are anything like mine, that is an evening spent on the bedroom floor.

Sitting down. The top is padded and the seat height is 15 inches, which is about the height of a dining chair, so you sit like a person and put your shoes on instead of squatting like a teenager. SONGMICS rates it to hold up to 660 lb. Gary is 59 and not a small man, and he sits on one end to pull his boots on while I sit on the other end with a cup of coffee, and it does not creak or bow. A wooden bench with a hard lid is fine to perch on for thirty seconds. Nobody sits on one to watch the evening news.

What goes inside. This is the part I did not expect to care about. It is listed at 31.7 gallons and I believe it, because two folded fleece blankets, a stack of sweaters I will not see again until November, and a spare set of sheets all went in with room left over for whatever I am hiding at Christmas. The whole 43.3 inch length opens up, so you are not fishing around dividers. It is 15 inches deep and 15 inches tall, so it tucks under the window wall at the foot of my bed without crowding the walkway to the bathroom. The lid is reinforced with metal corner guards, which sounds like a catalog line until you have owned a cheap ottoman whose lid sagged in the middle after a year.

Where the Wooden Bench from Target Wins

Two things, and the first one is the reason people buy the wood in the first place. I am not going to pretend cloth looks like wood. The wooden benches I have looked at have a wood top, a wood frame and a painted or natural finish, and in a house with hardwood floors and 1978 trim they read as furniture. Donna's sits at the end of her guest bed and it looks like it was always there. My SONGMICS bench reads as soft and tidy against carpet, and the linen-look surface with the tufting is genuinely pretty, but nobody is going to walk in and ask where I found the antique.

The second is repair. The care instruction on the SONGMICS bench is to wipe it with a damp cloth, and that is the whole list. A crumb, a dust bunny, a splash of coffee, all fine. But the surface is the look, and the look is not fixable. If the lid gets scuffed, or a moving box drags across a corner, you cannot sand it down and paint it in the garage on a Saturday. A wooden bench you can. Ten years from now that wood bench can be sanded and given a fresh coat and look new again, and mine will still be the same fabric it was on the day it arrived.

That is the honest trade. The wood asks more money and more of your Saturday up front, and in exchange it will outlast the fabric by a decade.

What Seven Months at the Foot of the Bed Has Taught Me

Seven months is long enough to stop noticing a piece of furniture, and that is the real test. I stopped noticing this one around week three, which is a compliment. The blankets live in it. My shoes go on sitting on it. Tomorrow's outfit gets laid out flat on top of it most nights, which is a habit I did not have before April. It gets wiped with a damp cloth when the dust shows, about once a month in this house.

It is light enough that I can nudge it an inch or two with my foot when I want the walkway wider, and it has never shifted under me when I sat down. The lid goes up and comes down quietly. Gary has never once complained about it, and Gary complains about furniture.

My daughter stayed with us for four days in September and used it as a luggage bench, which is not what I bought it for and turned out to be its second-best job. The first is still sitting down to put shoes on.

What it is not is a coffee table, and it is not the bench by the front door where wet shoes land. A fabric top in a wet traffic zone is asking for trouble. Mine is in a carpeted bedroom where the worst thing that happens to it is a laundry basket set down too hard.

I also want to say plainly that it did not change my bedroom. It solved a small problem. The blankets lived in the hall closet and now they do not. That is the whole claim, and it is enough.

Fifteen inches of seat height and a 660 lb rating is the difference between a bench you look at and a bench you actually sit on.

How to Measure Before You Order Either One

Measure the wall, not your idea of the wall. I taped the footprint out on the floor with painter's tape, 43.3 inches by 15 inches, and walked past it for two days before I ordered. That sounds fussy until you get something home that blocks a closet door. Do the same thing for the Target bench, because the wooden ones come in a few lengths and the one you liked online is not always the one on the floor.

Then check what opens toward the bench. My closet door swings the other way, which is why the long side fit. If a door, a dresser drawer or a bedside table opens into that space, subtract it before you buy. On the wooden bench you also want room to lift a lid that weighs more than the fabric one does.

The Money Question, Without the Numbers

I am not going to quote you prices, because tags move and because I do not know what the label will say the day you read this. But you should know the shape of it. The wooden bench is the more expensive purchase, and it is more expensive for reasons that are real: the wood itself, the joinery, the finish, and the freight to get something that heavy onto your porch.

The question worth asking is not which one costs less. It is how many years you plan to keep it and what you need it to do in those years. If you are furnishing a bedroom you will repaint in three years and you mainly need the blankets off the floor and somewhere to sit, the fabric bench is the sensible buy and you will not regret a penny of it. If this is the bench you expect to still be standing here when the house sells, buy the wood and cry once.

The Little Things Nobody Mentions

The SONGMICS bench arrives folded, so the fabric has a crease in it where it was folded. Mine relaxed in a few days, and a warm damp cloth hurried it along. Do not panic on day one and start working at it with an iron.

The tufting on the lid is pretty, and it does collect a little dust in the dips. A damp cloth and thirty seconds once a month handles it. No special cleaner, no brush.

Assembly on the wooden bench wants two people for the last step, in my experience with Donna's. Not because the steps are complicated but because holding a wood top square while you drive screws is awkward alone.

Neither bench is a place for tools, paint cans or anything sharp. Blankets, sweaters, sheets, board games, the good scissors. That is the list.

And a small one: the wood bench has a finish you have to think about. A wet glass, a hot mug, a felt pad on the bottom of a lamp. The fabric bench does not care about any of that.

What I Would Do Differently

Two things. I would have measured with tape on the floor before ordering instead of after, which I got away with by luck, and I would have given myself a week before deciding I loved it. The rug in my living room took a week to relax flat and taught me that lesson. New furniture needs a week to stop looking like a box in the room.

And I thought about a second one for the entryway and decided against it, because a fabric top where wet shoes land is a bad idea. If my entry were covered and dry, I would have bought two. As it is, one is right.

Who Should Buy Which

Buy the SONGMICS bench if you want to sit down in the bedroom, if you want the blankets out of the hall closet, if you want something you can set up alone in five minutes, and if you are decorating around soft textures and carpet. That is my room, and it is why mine is still there seven months later.

Buy the wooden bench from Target if the look is the point, if the bench sits where guests will see it, if you have the patience for an evening of assembly and the budget for the better material, and if you want to be able to sand and repaint it in ten years. There is nothing wrong with wanting the wood. It is just a different purchase with a different job, and buying it for blanket storage alone is paying for something you will never see under the bed.