It is a meandering journey of a submit, so make your self snug. We talked about in this facet desk submit that we traded our queen-size mattress for a much bigger king-size one. The rationale might sound apparent – as a result of it’s greater, duh! – however as for why we fortunately sailed by over 17 years collectively with out wanting one – after which immediately pulled an about-face final fall… nicely, it basically boiled all the way down to: “the issues we do for our canine” (extra on that in a second).
We additionally needed to rigorously plan how we’d squeeze the most important mattress we’ve ever owned into our smaller bed room. And we had an enormous realization about bigger furnishings in a smaller home (it’s in all probability not what you assume!). Plus we had some enjoyable with photoshop.
Once we advised one in all our mates in regards to the change, they had been shocked – neigh, SHOCKED – to listen to we didn’t have already got a king mattress. The truth is, we’ve heard this sentiment a number of instances over our decade and a half of running a blog. As if two adults sleeping in a queen was akin to sharing bunk beds or one thing. We by no means actually understood that response as a result of we had been all the time completely content material in our queen mattress – particularly as a result of we shared many smaller beds in our earlier days collectively.
You see, a queen was an enormous enchancment from the place we began our relationship – with me sleeping on a futon in the lounge of a one-bedroom residence that I shared with 2 different guys in Queens. In case you do the maths, that meant 1 particular person was within the bed room and a pair of of us slept in the lounge on futons, therefore my Pinterest-worthy setup beneath. Sure, I received Sherry’s coronary heart regardless of this “bed room” state of affairs:
Fairly quickly after that I moved to a distinct residence on the Higher West Aspect the place I used to be lastly capable of improve to a full-size mattress. You may watch a video tour of that residence and see Sherry’s NYC residence in The Village (which additionally sported a full-size mattress).
Buying and selling as much as a queen-size mattress in our first Richmond residence collectively (proven beneath) was fairly a luxurious as a result of we had been sharing full-size beds for a 12 months or so at that time. These facet tables and $5 Ikea lamps, although? Not fairly luxurious.
Over many (many) years we by no means actually felt cramped sleeping in a queen-size mattress. So though a few of our mates and a big portion of the web had been like “I can not reside with out my king mattress”, it appeared pointless to us to spend the additional cash on a much bigger mattress/sheets/quilt since we had been completely proud of our queen. It was frugality meets a traditional case of “If it ain’t broke…”
Then after we moved right here a collection of issues began to slowly change our minds. The primary one wasn’t a width situation that was bothering us – it was a top situation. And never for us, however for our previous canine, Burger.
Like most getting old canine, leaping up and down grew to become tougher for him as he acquired older (he was 15 when he handed in 2021). He beloved being on the mattress however was typically too cussed to make use of a bench or different “helper surfaces” to stand up and down (we had a flooring pouf + bench model of Doggy Steps happening however about half the time he ignored them in favor of the kamikaze technique).
In true “small-dog-who-thinks-he’s large” style, he’d try and spring from the ground to the facet of the mattress in a single chaotic leap – and most well-liked to get down the identical means. He’d all the time make it (though getting up typically took a couple of tries), and we’d fortunately elevate him up and down every time he’d allow us to – however we frightened in regards to the toll it was taking over his legs and again.
At first we simply thought-about getting a decrease mattress body (like a platform) to shorten the gap for him since we had made different Burger-mobility modifications to the home already (like putting in a stair runner over our wooden steps) however he sadly left us immediately within the fall of 2021 as a result of a longstanding coronary heart situation.
The entire bed-height consideration grew to become prime of thoughts once more when Penny entered our lives final 12 months. She fancies herself some mixture of a cat / ninja / mountain goat / daredevil and leaps up & down from the chairs, couches, and – particularly – our mattress with absolute reckless abandon.
She’s nonetheless younger and spry (she’s 3), however we all know that reducing our mattress will assist her legs and again over the long term. And the explanation that our brains appeared to slowly shift from “let’s simply decrease our queen mattress” to “what if we acquired a decrease mattress that’s additionally king-size” = this canine sleeps like she’s impersonating that equals signal I simply used. Burger used to twist right into a small ball and tuck in behind Sherry’s legs or up on my pillow by my head, however Penny likes to stretch out horizontally like she’s impersonating a twizzler, and since our mattress isn’t additional large, which means she fairly recurrently smashes into each of us within the course of. Basically all of us kind the letter H. Sherry and I are the edges of the H and Penny is the center sprint in the event you can image it.
It immediately made a queen mattress really feel… not so roomy. And typically her arms poke out in entrance of her like this, and her face rests between them, leading to some claws and a chilly nostril to whoever is the fortunate facet of the H at that second.
Then this previous summer season we went to Mexico. At any time when we go on an enormous journey, we all the time appear to take some type of home or life-style inspiration again with us. We will pinpoint the spring break journey that began our minimizing efforts, our Costa Rica journey kicked our Florida transfer into gear – and nicely, our Mexico journey made us desire a king-size mattress.
In some way we managed to take zero images of the particular mattress that wooed us, however right here it’s beneath from the Airbnb listing. It doesn’t look significantly spacious from this angle, but it surely was one of many first instances I bear in mind registering “so THIS is why folks love king-sized beds.” Upon additional reflection, I’m certain the conclusion was hitting us as a result of it was the primary time in lots of months that we slept with out a inflexible stretched-out canine poking into all sides of our our bodies. It was nice. We slept SO WELL. Penny included.
It’s also possible to see a bit extra of the house on this video tour Sherry took of the Airbnb proper after we checked in. You understand, earlier than we had suitcases and varied trip stuff in all places (which might be why I by no means took images of this room).
Notice: It’s also possible to view this video on YouTube.
Backside line: we got here dwelling from Mexico with an especially sturdy need to determine a approach to make a king-size mattress work in our bed room, though we frightened that we didn’t even have the room (particulars, particulars). A king mattress is 16″ wider than a queen, which felt like house we didn’t have – particularly contemplating that we would have liked to depart room to entry our closets alongside that left wall. That is the room with a queen mattress beneath:
As a substitute of instantly giving up, we determined to do some cautious measuring and planning – even turning our queen mattress sideways at one level to visualise the broader king mattress – which helped us decide that we might really make it work! Extra on that in a second.
The King Mattress We Selected
We thought-about quite a lot of choices for our decrease wider bedframe and ended up with this Tessu upholstered platform bed frame from Article. We actually like how stable a mattress feels when the headboard and body are constructed as one, particularly since each Burger and Penny like to hang around below the mattress typically too – in order that additionally makes you need one thing that doesn’t really feel rickety. Are we too obsessive about our canine? The reply is: that’s not doable and canine are the most effective. And sure, though this mattress is a lot decrease than our final one, Penny likes to military crawl below it and assume her Twizzler-like sleeping place.
Appears/function-wise we additionally favored that the legs of this mattress had been inset from the corners so that they mainly disappear with the quilt on the mattress (particularly for the reason that walnut end didn’t match our room). Plus, they don’t develop into a toe-stubbing hazard!
We acquired it within the Taupe Clay shade, which is a pleasant medium heat grey (it additionally is available in navy and deeper grey). We’ve been actually, actually proud of it! Principally goes with the whole lot.
How We Acquired A Larger Mattress To Match Into Our Smaller Room
We lined a few of this in our submit about our DIY wooden nightstands, however I needed to reiterate it right here as a result of the “match” of this mattress was actually vital to us. Even I, who was essentially the most frightened about cramping this bed room with a much bigger mattress, am thrilled with the outcome. And sure, we undoubtedly nonetheless have room to get into our closets with out situation. We’re in them a number of instances a day, so I used to be unwavering in my dedication to creating that not-annoying.
Basically the important thing was that we needed to shift the mattress over and construct smaller nightstands (and the one on Sherry’s facet needed to be even smaller than mine). That concession purchased us sufficient house to make the closet entry fully workable – and it was nicely price it to have such a large mattress, which makes this room really feel prefer it lives so much bigger than it did earlier than!
I can also’t say sufficient about utilizing no matter you could have in artistic methods to assist “really feel” what a room would possibly really feel like with that new bigger merchandise. Once we discovered {that a} king mattress’s width (76″) was just like the size of a queen mattress (80″), we knew that turning our queen mattress sideways was an effective way to experiene how it might really feel to entry our closets with one thing that large within the room.
You may see how the whole lot matches collectively within the video beneath that we made for the nightstand submit.
Notice: It’s also possible to watch this video on YouTube.
Not solely does it match logistically, we each really feel prefer it aesthetically matches higher as nicely. You might have heard that typically the trick to creating small areas look greater is to make use of bigger furnishings. It appears counterintuitive, however typically small-scale furnishings can emphasize the smallness of a room. Plus, within the case of our mattress, the decrease top makes the room really feel taller and airier.
I imply actually – look how the queen-size mattress simply made the entire room really feel smaller and fewer ethereal. I want this was taken from the very same POV, however you get the thought:
As for the way it feels to lastly be a part of the king mattress membership, it undoubtedly feels straight-up luxurious. The 5 of us (children and canine included) can all discover a spot on weekend mornings. Penny can transfer round at evening with out waking us up (and vice versa). We’re now not a human-dog-human conga line. Besides apparently for this photograph:
And in case you’re frightened in regards to the destiny of our previous mattress, the whole lot lives on (we offered the body and headboard on a neighborhood buy-sell-trade board and donated the mattress there too). Inside someday of itemizing it, the whole lot was picked up!
Now that the brand new mattress is in place, we’ve been considering a little bit little bit of shade or texture on the wall behind it – particularly since extra of it’s uncovered now with the lower-lying headboard.
We love how mild and shiny this room is, so we don’t assume we wish to paint the entire thing, however we’re debating doing one thing with that wall behind the mattress. These are simply photoshop renderings, however we considered perhaps utilizing a muted pink…
…or a comfortable blue-green to enrich all the greenery now we have outdoors the wall of glass doorways.
We’ve even debated doing one thing extra textured, like grasscloth wallpaper or a wooden slat wall. This was our greatest approximation of 1 the place we’d stain the wooden a comfortable tone. Once more: that is photoshop so the whole lot seems jarring. Please squint A LOT.
Truthfully, some days we simply love how easy and expansive the white wall with the brilliant artwork feels. There’s a fairly nice view out your complete wall of glass doorways to the fitting of the mattress, so typically we predict: that’s the accent. Sorry, partitions – you’ll be able to’t compete.
So who is aware of! We’ll undoubtedly share if and after we do one thing. And within the meantime, we’ve already made one other purposeful improve to the room that we’ll share in a future submit. Spoiler: it includes incomes much more storage! Like AS MUCH STORGE AS OUR LAST HOUSE’S HUGE WALK-IN CLOSET.
In case you take one factor from this submit I hope it’s: “don’t surrender in the event you assume one thing received’t slot in a smaller room.” If we hadn’t turned our queen mattress sideways and experimented with how it might work if we shifted the mattress over and gave Sherry a smaller facet desk, nicely, our king mattress goals would have been simply that – a dream that by no means grew to become actuality.
And your complete idea that bigger objects of furnishings in smaller rooms can typically make them really feel greater is TRULY WILD. The truth is, this mattress change impressed an upcoming sitting room change that we’re making primarily based on that discovering – so keep tuned (furnishings takes like 15+ weeks recently, however as quickly as now we have one thing to point out you I’m certain Sherry can be on IG tales sharing all of it).
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