How to choose a bed

Size is the decision people most often wish they had made differently, and almost always in the same direction. Rather than give you a table, we have drawn every size to scale so you can see what you are actually buying.

This is where a bed stops being a piece of furniture and starts being a piece of your home. All of our beds are offered across the same base options, so you can choose the style you love and the function you need independently.

A small decision with a real effect.

A solid platform gives the mattress a firm, consistent foundation and a slightly firmer overall feel.

A sprung platform adds a gentle layer of give beneath the mattress and improves airflow. It softens the overall feel a little and takes some of the load off the mattress itself, which tends to help it hold its shape over time.

If you already sleep on a firm mattress and like it, sprung is the more forgiving choice. If you like a properly firm bed, stay solid.

Height is the thing to get right.

A tall headboard anchors a room with high ceilings and makes a real statement. In a room with a low ceiling or a window close behind the bed, it can crowd the space.

Ask yourself whether you sit up in bed to read or work. If you do, you want a headboard tall enough and softly padded enough to lean against comfortably, which usually means going taller than you first think.

This is the part we would ask you not to decide on a screen.

Every screen renders colour differently, and every room lights it differently. A warm oat that looks perfect in showroom lighting can read grey in a north facing bedroom, and a deep tone that looks flat in a photograph can be extraordinary in evening light.

Texture

A flat weave gives a crisp, tailored finish. A boucle or heavier weave gives softness and depth, and hides marks more forgivingly.

Life in the room

Children, pets and morning coffee all have opinions about fabric. If your bedroom sees traffic, a mid tone with texture will live better than a pale flat weave.

The frame is the room. The mattress is the sleep.

Start with how you sleep

• Side sleepers need the mattress to allow the shoulder and hip to sink in so the spine stays level. A firmer mattress pushes back against those points and creates pressure.
• Back sleepers generally want a medium to firm feel, supporting the lower back without letting the hips drop.
• Front sleepers need firmer support, because a soft mattress lets the hips sink and arches the lower back.

If you share a bed and disagree, the wider sizes help more than any single specification, because you are less likely to feel each other's movement or compete for the same section of mattress.

On spring counts

Higher spring counts are marketed hard, and they are not the whole story. What matters is how the springs are distributed, what sits above them and how the whole construction works together. A well built mattress with a moderate spring count will outperform a poorly built one with a very high number.

Fibreglass

Many mattresses on the UK market use fibreglass as a fire barrier. It works, and it is legal, but it can migrate through the cover if the cover is removed or damaged.

Our Natural, Pillow Top and Knightsbridge ranges are made without fibreglass. If this matters to you, and for a lot of families it does, those are the ranges to look at.

A topper is not a fix for the wrong mattress, but it is a genuine refinement. It adds a layer of softness at the surface without changing the support underneath, and it takes the daily wear rather than the mattress itself.

Pillows are the most under considered part of the bed and the cheapest to get right. Side sleepers need more loft to fill the gap between shoulder and ear. Back sleepers need less. Front sleepers need very little, or none.

If you wake with neck ache on a mattress you otherwise like, change the pillow before you change anything else.

Some of our pieces are held ready to dispatch. Everything else is made to order in our own workshop, which is what allows us to offer the range of fabrics and configurations we do.

If you are working to a deadline, a move, a new baby, a house full of guests at Christmas, tell us at the start rather than at the end. We will tell you honestly what is achievable.

We have been making furniture as a family since 1968. We supplied some of Britain's best known retailers for two decades before we started selling directly, which means the bed you order from us is made in the same workshop, to the same standard, by the same people.

• Made in Britain. Not assembled here. Made here.
• Order swatches. Free, and the best few pounds we never charge you.
• Visit the showroom. Nothing replaces lying on a mattress. If you are able to come to us, come.
• Talk to us. We would rather spend twenty minutes helping you choose the right bed than have you order the wrong one. Email sales@thesleepco.com.