I Tried Three DTC Bed Companies to See If I Could Revamp My Sleep Life

This story is a part of New Year, New You, a package devoted to small, low-stress home improvement projects that, with a little effort, will dramatically improve your life.

Of all the various investments one can make in their home, the one that I’ve thought about the least (until very recently) is whatever’s happening in my bedroom. Since I spend the majority of my time in the common spaces of my apartment, naturally, my attention has been focused on making those spaces perfect for my aesthetic and functional needs. Fussing with the interior of a home is a lifelong journey, and one that will never be complete: there’s always a new rug, table, chair, textile, or otherwise, and I take pleasure in puttering around my home, holding a random vase in hand, trying to figure out where it should go and why. 

Unfortunately, I’ve not turned any of this care to my bedroom, which, again, is definitely part of my home, and is the area that I feel needs the most work. I’m not trying to completely revamp my life by turning it upside down, but I’d like to start enjoying every part of my apartment, not just the areas I’ve deemed suitable for public use. It’s finally time to tackle the bedroom once and for all.

This supposed revamp has been ongoing on a small scale. A year ago, I’d been gifted linen sheets from both Quince and Parachute, and upgraded all of my bedding from the poly-blend sheet selection at TJ Maxx (my preferred big-box discount home goods purveyor). Instead of the lumpy duvet I’d used for years, I now have a light linen quilt and blanket setup and no longer feel like I’m too hot at night. I recently disposed of my lumpy Ikea pillows and replaced them with two memory foam pillows, both of which provide more support than I’d previously lived with. But all of these minor adjustments are mere set dressing—the finest linens do very little to make up for an uncomfortable bed and worn-out mattress. 

The bed I’d used for the better part of a decade came from a friend who was downsizing; it’s an Ikea TARVA frame, spare and serviceable, but a few of the slats have snapped in half and the frame itself is wobbly. The mattress I’ve used also seemed ready for retirement; it’s a Helix model circa 2013, with foam that, by now, has collapsed under the weight of my slumbering body, leaving me with back pain in the mornings and a feeling that I can only describe as the lead up to bed sores—an uncomfortable heat that builds if I lay in bed for too long before falling asleep. This means I cannot reasonably partake in "hotel time," a cutesy personal rebrand of watching TV In bed for hours. 

In order to really test out the DTC experience for yet another area of products that likely requires human touch, I requested a bed and mattress from two well-known and highly-praised DTC companies in the sleep space, to see if changing the big things in my bedroom would, somehow, change me. 

A good bed is hard to find—but I did 

Thuma’s appeal, at least to me, is that (per the Instagram ads I’ve seen for what feel like decades) it’s easy enough to assemble by yourself. I’d been fooled by this conceit before, and was understandably a bit nervous. But one of my sisters owns the bed and assured me that putting it together was simple. Emboldened by this endorsement, I persisted.

What’s appealing about the product itself is the option for customization. Thuma’s beds are modular in the sense that if you buy just the bed frame itself, absent a headboard or anything else, you can add those parts from them down the line. I believe that a bed should have a headboard, as being able to sit up comfortably is a key component of hotel time, so I chose the headboard and accompanying cushion. Of all the beds I could’ve acquired, Thuma’s appeal also lies in the construction: aside from a few bolts in the headboard, the majority of the bed’s structure is held together by Japanese joinery, which means that most of the bed just slots together, kind of like Legos. 

The bed came to me in four very large boxes, and I remain grateful for the kind FedEx men who carried them up my stairs and to my apartment’s hallway. Truthfully, half the battle of assembling any DTC, large-scale furniture item is the packaging; it is a marvel that we are able to flat pack things that should absolutely not be, so I guess I’ll count my blessings. Once I’d wrangled the stuff out of the boxes, I laid the pieces out according to the relatively spare instructions and set about putting the bed together.

Something I learned with this project is that any issues I experience in putting furniture together are a result of my own problems and not the product itself. At one point, I realized that I’d attached some pieces incorrectly and therefore had to take it apart and put it back together again—a process that in normal situations would move me to tears, but was relatively painless, given the lack of screws. The bed really does come together quickly; once you’ve assembled the general frame and attached the legs, you simply roll the slats and they lay flat on top of the frame. The cushion attaches to the headboard and is easily removable, and Thuma provides you with two extra legs for the bed in case you decide to lose the headboard for a while (the headboard is two pieces that are attached to two longer front legs that then attach to the frame itself). Once assembled, the bed itself is beautiful and very sturdy, unlike my previous bed which felt like it’d collapse if I sneezed too hard while lying on it. And when I go to sleep at night, I don’t think about the frame itself, I’m just comfortable—the hallmark of any good piece of furniture.

A mattress for me and only me

Buying a bed online is a gamble but relatively low-risk; a mattress, on the other hand, is huge. Various DTC brands like Casper, Saatva, Leesa, and Helix, all offer some version of a try-it-before-you-buy scenario, where the consumer can order the mattress, have it delivered, sleep on it for a set amount of time, and then return it if it doesn’t work out to their satisfaction. This seems great in theory, but less so in practice; if you get a mattress you don’t like and then have to return it, you technically also have to coordinate the arrival of a new mattress, and that should be timed correctly so as to avoid spending one to five business days sleeping on the sofa.

There are some stores like Sleepare that offer a bunch of different DTC mattresses under one roof for consumers to test, and some DTC brands do have stores where you can test out their a wares, but for the most part, ordering a mattress online means relying on good faith and the reviews of faceless strangers on the internet, much like the one you’re reading right now.
Of all the mattresses I could’ve requested, Purple called to me because it came strongly recommended by a friend. She’d recently moved and the Purple mattress she got changed her sleep, she said. And, crucially, she was able to test it at a Raymour & Flanigan showroom (past meets present). I followed her lead, and after lolling about on a few mattresses, I knew that the Purple (original flavor) was right for me. 

I’m a side sleeper who runs hot and who, for the past month or so, has developed something akin to tennis elbow from sleeping strangely. The Purple mattress is a solid foam mattress, with a layer of their proprietary GelFlex Grid, which, from what I can tell, is a squishy rubber grid that feels a bit like a Dr. Scholl’s insole, but on a much larger scale. Per the website and the kind salesperson at Raymour & Flanigan, this mattress would support me regardless of what position I sleep in and wouldn’t cause me any further bodily distress.

The mattress is delivered in a large purple tote bag of sorts and was ferried up to my apartment by two men who also removed my old mattress from my apartment. (If you’re ordering any mattress online, check to see if the company will remove your old mattress and if they do, make sure to wrap it in a plastic mattress bag.) Like most foam mattresses of this era, the Purple has to breathe a bit before it’s fully ready for use. I noticed no weird smell as it expanded to its full potential. My first night’s sleep on my new mattress and bed combo was unmemorable—and in this case, that’s a very good thing. I just slept like the dead and woke up feeling something close to refreshed. Regardless of what position I slept in, I was able to get comfortable, and, crucially, I can stay in bed and do the various administrative activities that I’d normally do from my couch with my computer without feeling too hot or gross. 

A body pillow that’s not embarrassing

The third and most crucial element of transforming my bed into a place of refuge rather than necessity was acquiring some more support—not for sleeping, but for sitting up. The husband pillows of my college days are unfortunately not very nice to look at, but the support they provided was unparalleled. These days, companies like Bearaby and Buffy are making body pillows that look nicer than their predecessors, and promise the same amount of support, if not more. Because I’d previously disposed of all my bad pillows and was left with only two, I needed something so that I might bridge the gap between leisure and slumber—so I requested the Cuddler from Bearaby in the hopes that it would be the piece I needed to complete this puzzle.

The Cuddler is a long noodle of a pillow, filled with foam that’s neither too hard or too soft. It’s 75 inches long, which is longer than my actual bed, and can be used in a variety of ways—twisted up like a pretzel to form a pillow or wrapped around your body like a very gentle snake for support. At first, getting used to this enormous thing in the bed and figuring out how to maneuver it properly was a challenge. But after a few weeks of trial and error, I figured out what the Cuddler’s truest calling was. When folded into a rainbow shape and then placed against the headboard, I was able to cram myself into the nook created by the arch of the pillow, and used the excess on either side as armrests—like a very plush captain’s chair or a prototype of the pods that the humans use in Wall-E. Ensconced in this fashion, I was able to read, write, and watch TV without any of the attendant back pain or weird hamstring aches I’d experienced in the past. I’m not a bed person by nature, but with my new setup, I could be. 

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