You’ve probably heard the saying “I can sleep when I die” and while I appreciate the sentiment to get out and experience all life has to offer . . . I disagree.

You physically cannot sleep when you die . . . you won’t be able to do anything . . . so I’m going to sleep while I’m alive. And I sleep hard.

I am proud of my hard sleeping priorities, but I’m lucky enough to share my bed with a handsome fellow – who happens to be a light sleeper. I’ve said many times that I’m not a dream to sleep next to, and we had to fix it.

We ended up with this MATTRESS and this bedframe – both pictured.  We had a budget of $1500 for the mattress, box springs, bed frame, bedding, and headboard which came from selling our old living room furniture and a nice bonus my husband got for being awesome at his job. I quickly learned that’s not a lot when you want a quality – and a king size mattress. But we were able to come in under budget!! Later this week I’ll get into the headboard and the bedding, but today here’s how we made the bigger purchases.

We did so much research and put a lot of thought into what bed to pick. Here’s some things we learned along the way.

1. Think about a bed that you have slept in other than your own – that you remember the mattress. While you’re at it think about what you don’t like about your bed.  :: I don’t remember many mattresses. I don’t remember many nights distinctly because of how I slept. But there is one mattress that I know I love – it’s soft and envelopes me in – the only thing I didn’t like was it was super hot. And my husband knows from our honeymoon that he prefers platform both the look and functionality of it. He also needed a bed that would reflect my movement.

1. Don’t buy the most popular thing, just because it’s the most popular thing. Organic, memory foam beds seem to be all the rage. They even advertise the whole movement thing- the lady jumping on the bed with the wine glass got my husband every time. But after a little research and looking into reviews of people who have had them for a while, I found that it wouldn’t work for us. The top two complaints that got me were waking up sweaty because the foam made everything hot, and the bed sagging when you sat on the edge or sat in bed for an extended period of time – like reading for an hour before sleep or binge watching a tv show. However, platforms are becoming very popular now also. I did extensive research on whether or not it was ok to NOT have a box spring . . . guess what it is and we saved $300.

1. Read the reviews. – After lots of reviews, and laying on lots of beds. We eventually narrowed it down to something ‘plush’ – not firm but not pillow top – from Sealy. We liked the way Sealy’s were built with the reflective/cooling coils for movement and temperature. Right after that ‘groupon’ had two amazing deals on Sealy beds. So I looked them up on Sealy’s website and amazon to see which one we thought would be best for us. The one that was advertised to be the best (i.e luxury line, highest price) had the worst reviews of the two. Neither had horrible scathing reviews . . . but the one we purchased had all 5 star reviews except one lady who said it was too soft. As for the frame, a metal and a wood one was offered. . . the wood one broke for a few people, but the metal one had no bad reviews.

1. Search for the lowest price, and make sure you have a 30 day guarantee. Just because we found one we knew we’d like on groupon – I wasn’t set on that price especially since you couldn’t opt out of the box spring. I googled the name of the bed to see if I could find it elsewhere cheaper. Guess what I did . . . we purchased it thru the link above at $645.They were having a sale for free shipping if you spent over $500, and it came with white glove delivery – meaning they would set it up for us. Also, if we didn’t like it we could exchange it within 30 day – I couldn’t do that with groupon or the store where we bought our new sectional. Our frame was much the same. I knew I wanted the metal platform frame and I found one on amazon, but Target had a better price especially after my red card gave us free shipping.

As I’m writing this, we’ve had the bed for a little over a month now and we are both sleeping much better. The bed is comfortable and it really does reflect my movement. The bedframe was easy to put together and doesn’t sag. We’ve had a few ‘new bed’ things to get used to – like it doesn’t sag where our weight has pressed it down over years of use! But overall this was a successful purchase.

Any other new mattresses out there?