I love vacations. I prefer to maximize all the sights and smells by traveling on foot. It’s the best way to get to know a new city. The best feeling after overstimulating the senses is sinking into a hotel bed. There’s nothing like settling into sheets pulled tight underneath a cloud-like duvet. The thermostat reading 5-10 degrees cooler than what it’s typically set at back home. Black-out curtains drawn. They’re the perfect conditions for recharging after a full day of exploring. It’s a luxury I’d love to recreate at home and until recently never prioritized.
I’ve grown accustomed to a less than average bed set-up. The twin bed in my childhood room was superseded with a twin extra long mattress in the dormitories. Like most college students, I excelled at staying up late and sleeping in. A blue economical springless mattress was at least a step-up from friends’ floors and couches.
For over a year, Jordan and I regularly refilled a double air mattress in our first apartment together. By morning it was 80% deflated. Once we adopted Forest, we layered extra blankets as protection so her paws wouldn’t puncture a hole through it. I’d hold my breath any time she’d change positions anticipating a loud “pop” in the middle of the night.
Nothing made us feel more adult than the day we replaced the inflatable pool toy with a real mattress. The best we could manage at the time was the cheapest offering at IKEA. Jordan, myself and two dogs would try our best each night to not be the last one in our full bed. Similar to the wobbly table, it was intended to be a starter piece. Before we knew it, a “couple years” turned into a decade.
Towards the last few years together, I’d wake up with hip and back pain that I wrongly blamed on turning 30. No amount of yoga and stretching would alleviate the dull-ache I had throughout the day. Mornings were always toughest. I wasn’t prepared to admit the shelf-life of our $100 mattress was long past-due.
Moving into our house in Georgia (and out of our four floor walk up cabin in California) finally gave me the motiviation for an upgrade. Big names in the mattress community like Casper, Tempurpedic and Purple punched me in the gut with sticker shock. With the help of discount codes, I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Quality mattresses are an investment. A third of our lives are spent sleeping. Yet spending upwards of $1k at one time on something unrelated to travel or rent made me queasy.
My thinking was simple, anything would be an improvement to the dusty IKEA relic we currently were sleeping on. Maybe one day we’ll own a fancy king Sleep Number bed where the dogs can stretch out their limbs along the mattress and not our faces. But temperature regulation and trendy podcast sponsors aren’t the only markers of quality brands.
After some research, I landed on a gel mattress with over 100k reviews and a 4+ star Amazon rating. It was the next best thing to going in store and testing out mattresses ourselves. Shipping was free with a fair return window. It was delivered in a tall skinny box you would never imagine held a mattress inside. I proudly set it up on my own.
The verdict: There is no doubt an improvement to our sleep since we made the switch. The queen mattress brought more precious real estate and a breath of fresh air into our room. My bones are less creaky in the morning. It’s a perfectly good mattress. The firmness would be by one critique. My expectations were to sink into a luxurious hotel bed, falling asleep with a satisfied grin on my face like they do in commercials. I briefly considered exchanging it for something softer but the thought alone of trying to fit in its original box and take it to a UPS broke me out in a sweat. The truth is, what usually makes a hotel bed so comfy are the accessories: quality pillows, soft and breathable sheets, a fluffy pillow topper. Freshly laundered and always neatly made. If a humble Hampton Inn can turn their beds into a luxury experience, so can we.
A mattress topper arrived at my doorstep in less than 24 hours. Offering an extra layer of comfort and protection, its soft cooling fabric was the extra umph our mattress needed. I was really impressed at the low effort/high impact improvement I felt within the first night.
Paired with a sleep machine and silk eye mask, I’m getting better sleep than I did as a teenager. Conquering a good night’s rest makes me feel capable of so much. What’s next? Purchasing a home?? Maybe a post for another time (and perhaps another decade or so).
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