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We recently bought ourselves a new mattress and bedstead.
A simple task you might assume, considering the many hours we spent researching this website. In reality, it took us weeks but we got there in the end.
One option of course is to go with the award winners. We’ve pulled together a list of 10 mattresses which have won awards and get great reviews, but I still remain keen on trying before you buy.
Of course, many mattresses now offer a 100 day free trial but most of these are foam mattresses (Casper, Leesa, Eve etc) and I personally prefer pocket springs. Well, to be more accurate my wife prefers pocket springs and I was keen that she was happy with the purchase.
Another option is to go to whichever showroom you have nearby and just pick the mattress you find most comfortable.
My issue with that is that it’s hard to get a proper sense of comfort from a 10 second lie down. After you’ve tried out 20 mattresses and disagreed 20 times about comfort you end up back in the car and back at square one.
So, we plumped for the Hypnos mattress which is made for Premier Inn.
For the mattress alone in King Size it was £525 including delivery. It was considerably more if you wanted a divan (about £450 extra), but my wife persuaded me to go for a bedstead instead this time. After much searching we went for the Julian Bowen Ravello, which was about £350 for a King Size.
It's certainly at the cheaper end of the bedstead market, but for the money I was impressed. It took me a couple of hours to build, but I was being 'helped' by a four year old. It arrived in three huge boxes and could mostly be constructed by one person. Most of the team was spent putting together the sprung slats which arrived as a wadge of wood and a packet of plastic attachments.
One of the main things to look for with a bedstead is the gap between the slats. If they're too far apart then it won't do your pocket sprung mattress much good and it will become uneven. In this case, the slats were nice and close together.
I was a little surprised to find the mattress would take a month to arrive, since I assumed they sold a lot of these things but we weren’t in a hurry so it was OK for my needs.
The advantage of course is that we’ve tried it out in Premier Inns before and have found their mattress comfortable. We’ll have slept on some which are a few years old (not a pleasant thought) and some which are much newer, but that probably provides a more accurate idea of comfort than a showroom mattress.
When it finally arrived I’ve got to admit it was firmer than I expected, so perhaps it will soften up with time. There’s no definitive scale for measuring firmness of mattresses but I’d put it down as a medium/firm mattress personally.
It’s also a non-flipper, by which I mean you can’t turn it over. Usually I turn my nose up at those mattresses as it can be a sign of a cheaper product, but in this case it seemed to be to make space for the wool topper.
It’s got 1000 pocket springs, which is right at the lower end of what I consider the ideal range but my wife and I are both as thin as rakes so it provides adequate support. I’d avoid this mattress if you are reading this whilst simultaneously eating a cream cake.
The main selling point for me was the Hypnos brand. Clearly this is at the cheaper end of their range, but they’re one of the best names in the mattress market and have won many awards in recent years.#
My feeling is that I’ll probably buy another topper to soften it up a bit. A topper on top of a topper may not be a top idea, but I reckon I’ll give it a go.
A simple task you might assume, considering the many hours we spent researching this website. In reality, it took us weeks but we got there in the end.
One option of course is to go with the award winners. We’ve pulled together a list of 10 mattresses which have won awards and get great reviews, but I still remain keen on trying before you buy.
Of course, many mattresses now offer a 100 day free trial but most of these are foam mattresses (Casper, Leesa, Eve etc) and I personally prefer pocket springs. Well, to be more accurate my wife prefers pocket springs and I was keen that she was happy with the purchase.
Another option is to go to whichever showroom you have nearby and just pick the mattress you find most comfortable.
My issue with that is that it’s hard to get a proper sense of comfort from a 10 second lie down. After you’ve tried out 20 mattresses and disagreed 20 times about comfort you end up back in the car and back at square one.
So, we plumped for the Hypnos mattress which is made for Premier Inn.
For the mattress alone in King Size it was £525 including delivery. It was considerably more if you wanted a divan (about £450 extra), but my wife persuaded me to go for a bedstead instead this time. After much searching we went for the Julian Bowen Ravello, which was about £350 for a King Size.
It's certainly at the cheaper end of the bedstead market, but for the money I was impressed. It took me a couple of hours to build, but I was being 'helped' by a four year old. It arrived in three huge boxes and could mostly be constructed by one person. Most of the team was spent putting together the sprung slats which arrived as a wadge of wood and a packet of plastic attachments.
One of the main things to look for with a bedstead is the gap between the slats. If they're too far apart then it won't do your pocket sprung mattress much good and it will become uneven. In this case, the slats were nice and close together.
I was a little surprised to find the mattress would take a month to arrive, since I assumed they sold a lot of these things but we weren’t in a hurry so it was OK for my needs.
The advantage of course is that we’ve tried it out in Premier Inns before and have found their mattress comfortable. We’ll have slept on some which are a few years old (not a pleasant thought) and some which are much newer, but that probably provides a more accurate idea of comfort than a showroom mattress.
When it finally arrived I’ve got to admit it was firmer than I expected, so perhaps it will soften up with time. There’s no definitive scale for measuring firmness of mattresses but I’d put it down as a medium/firm mattress personally.
It’s also a non-flipper, by which I mean you can’t turn it over. Usually I turn my nose up at those mattresses as it can be a sign of a cheaper product, but in this case it seemed to be to make space for the wool topper.
It’s got 1000 pocket springs, which is right at the lower end of what I consider the ideal range but my wife and I are both as thin as rakes so it provides adequate support. I’d avoid this mattress if you are reading this whilst simultaneously eating a cream cake.
The main selling point for me was the Hypnos brand. Clearly this is at the cheaper end of their range, but they’re one of the best names in the mattress market and have won many awards in recent years.#
My feeling is that I’ll probably buy another topper to soften it up a bit. A topper on top of a topper may not be a top idea, but I reckon I’ll give it a go.
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