This can be a meandering journey of a submit, so make your self comfy. We talked about in this aspect desk submit that we traded our queen-size mattress for a much bigger king-size one. The rationale may appear apparent – as a result of it’s greater, duh! However we fortunately sailed by means of over 17 years collectively with out ever wanting one. So why the sudden about-face final fall? Nicely, it primarily boiled right 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 a giant realization about bigger furnishings in a smaller home within the course of (it’s in all probability not what you suppose!). Plus we had some enjoyable with photoshop.
Once we instructed considered one of our buddies in regards to the mattress change, they have been shocked – nay, SHOCKED – to listen to we didn’t have already got a king mattress. In actual fact, 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 have been at all times 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 a giant 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. Should you do the maths, that meant 1 individual was within the bed room and a couple of of us slept in the lounge on futons, therefore my Pinterest-worthy setup under. Sure, I gained 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’ll be able to 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 under) 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 aspect 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 buddies and a big portion of the web have been like “I can not dwell with out my king mattress”, it appeared pointless to us to spend the additional cash on a much bigger mattress/sheets/cover since we have 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 sequence of issues began to slowly change our minds. The primary one wasn’t a width difficulty that was bothering us – it was a top difficulty. And never for us, however for our previous canine, Burger.
Like most growing older canines, leaping up and down turned tougher for him as he obtained older (he was 15 when he handed in 2021). He liked being on the mattress however was usually too cussed to make use of a bench or different “helper surfaces” to stand up and down (we had a ground 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 huge” trend, he’d try and spring from the ground to the aspect of the mattress in a single chaotic bounce – and most well-liked to get down the identical means. He’d at all times make it (though getting up typically took a couple of tries), and we might fortunately elevate him up and down at any time when he’d allow us to – however we fearful in regards to the toll it was taking over his legs and again.
At first we simply thought of getting a decrease mattress body (like a platform) to shorten the gap for him since we had made different Burger-mobility adjustments 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 turned 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 obtained 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 further vast, meaning she fairly repeatedly smashes into each of us within the course of. Basically all of us kind the letter H. Sherry and I are the perimeters of the H and Penny is the center sprint in case 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 aspect of the H at that second.
Then this previous summer time we went to Mexico. At any time when we go on a giant journey, we at all times appear to take some form of home or way of life 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 need a king-size mattress.
Someway we managed to take zero pictures of the precise mattress that wooed us, however right here it’s under from the Airbnb itemizing. It doesn’t look significantly spacious from this angle, however it 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 positive the belief 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 both sides of our our bodies. It was nice. We slept SO WELL. Penny included.
You can too see a bit extra of the area 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 every single place (which might be why I by no means took pictures of this room).
Notice: You can too view this video on YouTube.
Backside line: we got here house from Mexico with an especially sturdy want to determine a solution to make a king-size mattress work in our bed room, though we fearful that we didn’t even have the room (particulars, particulars). A king mattress is 16″ wider than a queen, which felt like area we didn’t have – particularly contemplating that we wanted to go away room to entry our closets alongside that left wall. That is the room with a queen mattress under:
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 of a number of choices for our decrease wider bedframe and ended up with this Tessu upholstered platform mattress body from Article. We actually like how strong a mattress feels when the headboard and body are constructed as one, particularly since each Burger and Penny like to hang around beneath 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 canines? The reply is: that’s not potential and canines are the most effective. And sure, though this mattress is a lot decrease than our final one, Penny likes to military crawl beneath it and assume her Twizzler-like sleeping place.
Appears to be like/function-wise we additionally favored that the legs of this mattress have been inset from the corners so that they mainly disappear with the cover 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 obtained 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 every thing.
How We Bought 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 essential to us. Even I, who was essentially the most fearful about cramping this bed room with a much bigger mattress, am thrilled with the outcome. And sure, we positively nonetheless have room to get into our closets with out difficulty. 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 aspect needed to be even smaller than mine). That concession purchased us sufficient area to make the closet entry fully workable – and it was nicely value it to have such a large mattress, which makes this room really feel prefer it lives quite a bit bigger than it did earlier than!
I can also’t say sufficient about utilizing no matter you have got in inventive methods to assist “really feel” what a room would possibly really feel like with that new bigger merchandise. Once we realized {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 a good way to expertise how it will really feel to entry our closets with one thing that vast within the room.
You’ll be able to see how every thing suits collectively within the video under that we made for the nightstand submit.
Notice: You can too watch this video on YouTube.
Not solely does it match logistically, we each really feel prefer it aesthetically suits higher as nicely. You’ll 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 positively 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 not a human-dog-human conga line. Besides apparently for this picture:
And in case you’re fearful in regards to the destiny of our previous mattress, every thing lives on (we bought the body and headboard on a neighborhood buy-sell-trade board and donated the mattress there too). Inside someday of itemizing it, every thing was picked up!
Now that the brand new mattress is in place, we’ve been considering just a little 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 gentle and vivid this room is, so we don’t suppose we need 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 thought of possibly utilizing a muted pink…
…or a gentle blue-green to enhance all the greenery we’ve 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 gentle tone. Once more: that is photoshop so every thing appears to be like 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 reasonably nice view out the whole wall of glass doorways to the appropriate 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 positively share if and after we do one thing. And within the meantime, we’ve already made one other useful 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.
Should you take one factor from this submit I hope it’s: “don’t quit in case you suppose one thing gained’t slot in a smaller room.” If we hadn’t turned our queen mattress sideways and experimented with how it will work if we shifted the mattress over and gave Sherry a smaller aspect desk, nicely, our king mattress desires would have been simply that – a dream that by no means turned actuality.
And the whole idea that bigger gadgets of furnishings in smaller rooms can usually make them really feel greater is TRULY WILD. In actual fact, 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 we’ve one thing to indicate you I’m positive Sherry will probably be on IG tales sharing all of it).
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