We’ve talked about it for a long time. Our very first bed was a hand-me-down from my grandma’s spare bedroom. So we got it used, and we have had it for close to 12 years. I bet we have talked about it for almost 4 years, but only now have we started the research and work to find out what we want in a new bed.
The decision to actually research it happened almost by accident. We had a few minutes to kill before going to a movie on one of our dates and decided to stop into Slumberland and check out the beds. We chatted with a gal by the name of Alyssa, who was super nice and helpful. We left finding a hybrid that we liked for around $800, which I thought was pretty reasonable. The hybrid bed is a combination of the memory foam and the spring mattress. Combining the old and the new bed styles for theoretically the best of both worlds.
Our first idea was to make our own headboard and along with it some end tables for our room. We were going to keep the bed frame and just attach the headboard to it. We even went as far as purchasing the wood to make it all.
The headboard materials we were going to use
Not knowing exactly what we wanted for a bed, we didn’t cut it up yet (Thank God!) because we didn’t know the height of the mattress and boxspring. We kept shopping.
I had run across an ad for the Purple bed at one point and thought it was interesting and looked like a nice bed. But the idea of buying a bed without trying it first seemed too risky. And it was around $1600 for the mattress.
We found time for another bed shopping experience and the next visit was Midwest Mattress. This place seemed kind of ghetto. We interrupted our sales person’s smoke break when we walked in, which was a bit of a turnoff to begin with. We left thinking we really weren’t keen on memory foam. It just felt too unfamiliar and weird. We also tried McGregor and found a nice inexpensive bed we liked.
Since we like to really research big purchases like this, I posted a Facebook question asking for recommendations on beds and a couple people recommended Tuft & Needle. Another online bed in a box, but this one was only $575. I had a similar feeling towards it as I did the Purple bed but for some reason, it appealed to me, but Jill seemed to be turned off by memory foam type of beds so we didn’t look much more into the bed in a box. I recommended we stop by one more place and give memory foam a longer look and if we think we could do it, try the Tuft & Needle. It has a 100 day like it or return it policy so the effort seemed worth the minimal risk and it was by far the most inexpensive bed we found and the people I knew who had it loved it.
We decided on Fosters for the place to take a closer look at memory foam type of beds, even though Tuft & Needle is not technically memory foam, but pretty close. The salesman at Fosters was very informative, but he was a salesman. Like your typical car salesman that has a hundred stats on why they are the best and everyone else is inferior. One thing I look for when dealing with salesmen is if they say something good about a competitor, or bad about their product. If they do either of these things, I feel they are shooting me straight. This guy didn’t do that even a little bit, and I gave him a lot of chances. We did warm up to the memory foam and if we had to buy a bed that day, I think we would have gone with a Serta Blue Max 1000. This bed was almost $2000 though.
Since the Tuft and Needle was nearly a quarter of the cost, we decided to give it a try. But you don’t need a box spring for these beds, and the foundation we had wasn’t great for this style either. So now we were looking at bed frames. We found a nice one with good reviews for just $188. With the amount of money we were saving on the mattress, we thought we were getting the whole bed for a steal, less than $800. Plus we didn’t have a bunch of time wrapped up in building our own headboard.
Everything was supposed to arrive on Friday and we were super excited. The bed arrived first so we tore down the old one and set up the new.
New bed with slates for the new-aged mattress.
The problem was, the new mattress didn’t arrive that day. So we threw the old mattress on the floor and slept next to the fire in the basement for a night. It was kind of romantic actually. Our kids enjoyed it the next few days after too.
Our old bed flopped in front of the stove
The next day when the mattress arrived, we opened it up, rolled it out, and watched it take shape. It was an interesting experience.
We’ve had a few nights sleep on it now and it is nothing earth-shattering, but it is a lot better than our old bed. I do think it will take a bit to get used to, but I’m hoping our backs start feeling better and we sleep more sound while in bed. I plan to update this a few weeks down the road and report if we like/love/hate the bed and if we end up returning it.
UPDATE – We have had this bed for quite some time now and I really like it. My back pain isn’t what it used to be and it is really comfortable. If you get one I would recommend NOT getting the Mattress Protector. It really cuts down on the breathability of the mattress. We ended up taking ours off and it made for a much better sleeping experience.
Love Live Connect 