A few people have mentioned being too hot in bed. (Ooh err missus).
I find Tresspass Bonnington Polo shirts are very cool to wear in bed. I know it seems counter intuitive, as they are 100% polyester, but they do keep the body cool.
I’ve just bought my seventh Bonnington Polo, it’s my go shirt, easy to wash, and no drying or ironing. The first one I bought a couple of years ago is as good as new.
How can you possibly wear a polyester shirt? It’s not 1973. Think of the plastic waste. Today’s shirt could be next year’s dolphin’s last supper.
Nothing in bed is the best sleep apparel
HH. Your 1973 reference reminded my of this.
Choosing a bed was more difficult than I imagined. Started off with a budget of £3,000, that rose to £4,000 after a quick look around and then that rose again. I’ve finally ordered one and settled on a Vispring Tiara Superb with Sovereign divan. All got pretty ridiculous tbh, but after trying/seeing many beds over a period of a month, I could easily feel and appreciate the benefits of paying more and more and more… Paying for two layers of springs in the mattress makes a big difference, not only for comfort, but for longevity of the mattress. This is probably where the budget was blown. Spring count in both mattress and divan also goes up when you reach the mattress two-layer spring level. The way the mattress layers are filled plays a very important part in comfort too. There’s horse hair bonded/woven (cheaper and firmer) and there’s hand-teased horse hair blended with shetland wool which costs more, last longer and far more comfortable. Both beds on paper would state the same spec, but feel and cost different.
Sales people in all the stores were very good, no one did any hard sell, which was good and surprising, as I didn’t want to be led by any sales pitch about the benefits of materials, etc. I basically tried the beds and asked how much later. Once me and my other half tried quite a few, it became relatively easy for both of us to appreciate the differences. Vispring are always doing offers, but the current one is the best one they’ve done for a long time (apparently ever, and after a bit of archive research, it turns out it is). It ends May 30th. The end prices are all the same whoever you buy from, but we did get a very good deal on this one, which wasn’t offered by any other shop over the past month.
I’ve stayed safe and gone for Vispring. I decided not to go for other makes (or water bed), but I would expect other makes to be equally as good, as long as you research the fine detail into the exact construction methods and materials used. As I said earlier, there’s horse hair and there’s horse hair, and there’s wool and there’s wool. If you get my drift 
It seems a tight market and with beds, you only get what you pay for.
Thanks again you all your replies. I have taken on board all you individually said and it did make a difference to how I chose.
I would suggest merino wool for wearables. It’s a natural material and keeps the body temperature regulated. It’s also good for being anti allergy and is naturally antimicrobial.
It also won’t cause the loss of any marine life either as a bonus
IKEA Hövag for us with a Tussöy topper. Cheap & cheerful but very comfortable.
G
We have Tempur in the bedrooms. Fantastic especially with their pillows. We have solid oak frames made by Chris Sharp cabinets in Leicester but sadly they now focus on kitchens. Perhaps one day they come back to furniture. They also did cherry and walnut.
Like Naim boxes then! Enjoy the good sleeps.
I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts after a long period of using the Vi-Spring.
After 30 years, I’ve yet to sleep on anything significantly better.
How often do you have to change the mattress?
Interestingly, the word ‘significantly’ is absent from my assessment of waterbed sleeping after 26 years, with one (surprisingly low cost) change of mattress. The original bed purchase was expensive, about £1000 In about 1993, but the very nice wood frame will last a lifetime… over those years I must have slept in a couple of hundred beds of different types, including memory foam, and a wide variety of sprung types, though no idea if any was ViSprung.
Will do Blythe. It will be approx another 5 weeks before it’s delivered and then I’ll have to sleep on it for a few weeks. By then this thread will be closed, so we’ll have to just keep talking about beds to keep it running 
It’s an unusual thing for me;
My first Vi-Spring was a bespoke size (5’ 6" x 7’ long) to fit a built-in bed base that I acquired with a house purchase.
I then moved house a year or two later and had to have a new base made to fit that mattress & base.
A few years later, we remodelled the bedroom giving us more space, so bought a wider, standard sized bed (6’ x 6’ 6") - a 4-poster bed, so the “odd sized one” became a spare.
10 years later, we moved again and had to leave the 4-poster bed behind for the new owners who particularly wanted a 4-poster, so we bought a new Vi-Spring bed for the new house.
10 years later, another house move and another new bed, with the old one now in a spare room. Guests often say it’s incredibly comfortable.
Incidentally, the old “odd size” bed, which is now 30 years old, I gave to my brother & his wife around 15 years ago and they still use it to this day and say it’s still extremely comfortable.
I used the word “significantly” because although sometimes a bed is “good” it may simply be different to what I’m used to or, it may be that after a couple of nights, I realise it’s not as good as I thought it initially was. If it were truly was better, I’d go home and think “I need to buy a better bed”.
As it is, I always get home, get in my bed and think (& sometimes say) “this is the best bed bed I’ve ever slept in”.
I wonder if I have ever slept in one… The brand of bed is not a question one normally asks of hosts or hotels, and I had never heard of that make until this thread.
The last non-waterbeds we bought were unknown brand with slatted wood support, before that Ikea likewise. Having found from ancient experience that they tend to give better support than any sprung base we had come across, and they can be quite inexpensive to boot. The last mattressse were memory foam, not Tempur, which was heavily criticised by Which? Magazine, but a cheaper one that scored better. Guests and grown-up kids have liked them.
Incidentally, if anyone reading the thread is interested in a waterbed, a disadvantage I forgot to mention is that they are fixed features, taking hours to move, even an inch, because you have to empty and refill - so no good for anyone who likes to rearrange room layout frequnetly. (One thing with two of our bedrooms is required access to eaves storage cupboards, which would severely limit placement choice for a waterbed in either of them,)
It was once the thing - being a student - to get rid of the bed base, and have the mattress sitting on the floor.
Proved useful with those wild nights when spinning out of it. Yoga classes helped in getting in and out.
Having an elevated sleeping position seemed wrong for a long time.
It was only after a hot summer and a very wet autumn that had an influence on the amount of wolf spiders appearing from nowhere making a run for me. Then finding dead ones squashed in my bed !!
Well I’ve had the Vispring Tiara Superb with Sovereign divan for 2 weeks now. It’s absolutely wonderful. The most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in. Should have done this years and years ago. Of course, money is the problem. Too many necessities and luxurious things to buy. A bed isn’t pretty and one doesn’t sit in a main room admiring it as a piece of furniture, so I suspect that’s why I’ve not gone out my way to invest in a good one. I sleep better, don’t toss and turn, and every night, lying on it feels luxuriously soft yet supportive.
Things I’ve learnt/bought for the bed recently:
The more you pay, the better the bed, up to a point where the materials don’t add comfort, they extend the life of the comfort. This bed is at the point in the Vispring range that comfort can’t be matched by the lower priced models.
I’m a side-sleeper. I’ve never really put a great deal of thought into this and always bought a good quality feather/down pillow. I need a pillow to support my head to the right height and apparently need a firm pillow. I would never have particularly chosen a firm one, but it of course makes sense. I bought a Yves Delorme Prestige Firm. This box-edged pillow has an inner chamber of 100% Hungarian goose feather for support and two outside chambers of Hungarian goose down for softness. It’s the same product Brinkhaus sell for £340 as ‘down around firm’ (Yves make them for Brinkhaus), but much cheaper. This is true and correct btw.
I’ve invested in the best low tog duvet I could find too. It’s the Brinkhaus Chalet 3.5 tog. This is filled with 100% large cluster free range white Mazurian snow goose down and uses cotton nano-batiste material for lightness/softness and breathability. The whole king size only weighs 280gr. If you have a top of the range down coat, you’ll know the feeling. Not hot, not cold, not clammy, just comfortable and ridiculously light.
400 thread count high quality cotton sheets/duvet cover are perfect. Not too heavy and breathable.
Use a Vispring mattress protector.
Don’t use fitted sheets.
Turn/flip the mattress once a week for the first month, thereafter once a month for the first few months. Then 2-3 times a year.
Don’t use dust mite protection sheets on the mattress.
Wash cotton sheets at 40c with non-bio powder. Ironing will kill any mites.
Don’t ever wash the duvet. If it’s got to that stage, bin it. Air it outside at least once a week and leave the duvet half folded on the bed first thing in the morning to air the mattress.
As I say, there’s many things one can spend their money on and I should have done it years ago. I wouldn’t spend any less. I would wait, save up, forfeit something. Going to bed now is like an 8 hour pampering session. Matching the correct spring rate to your weight and all the other duvet/pillow details makes it fairly improbable that you’ll sleep in a more comfortable bed anywhere in your life.
The Which? Magazine rating of a Vispring mattress, the most expensive of those they tested, is rather interesting… but that is the mattress presumably on its own.
I don’t know if Which Magazine said good or bad about the top of the range Vispring, but I wouldn’t base my opinion on what that magazine said anyway. The top of the range bed isn’t always better, as there are very expensive materials added that are not needed and/or can actually affect the bed’s performance. Gold plating a Ferrari comes to mind. The Saudi’s love to do things to cars to make them exclusive and no doubt Vispring will sell to certain markets. Vispring have had a large floor space in Harrods for a long time. Say no more. The mattress should always be matched to the specific divan that it was designed for and eventually when the mattress goes, the divan goes with it. Don’t mix old with new.
Another example of more expensive doesn’t necessarily mean better; you can buy pillows with 100% Mazurian snow goose down, but it won’t give enough support for side sleepers. Down from the Eider duck is the most expensive, but there doesn’t appear to be a tog 3.5 or less available, so too warm. Again, more expensive doesn’t mean better.
Pretty well what I said at the start of the thread