This post was sponsored by tulo.
Today I’m focusing on my favorite 60” x 80” of the Cottage: the bed. I’ve always loved so many things about it— its tall height, its headboard windows, its built-in bookshelves and drawers, and its nightstand cut-outs. The one thing I’ve not loved about it (until now) is the actual sleeping surface itself. And that’s because of our old mattress.
When Adam, Stanlee and I moved into the Cottage nearly 7 years ago, it was our first home all together. At the time, I had a Full-sized mattress from my previous apartment, and Adam had a King from his house. Naturally, the Cottage bedroom accommodates the size in between the two— a Queen. I adamantly refused to buy a third mattress. It seemed wasteful when we already had two on-hand, so I insisted on making one work somehow. First, we tried the Full. Obviously, it was too small for the frame, and constantly slid away from us when we climbed in and out of bed. At some point, my mom visited and noticed that I’d stuffed random linens into the gaps between the mattress and the bed to make it work. She kindly told me that I was being ridiculous, and that I should just cut Adam’s basic memory-foam King down to size. To my surprise, it worked with a simple bread knife. But it certainly wasn’t a clean cut. For years, foam flew everywhere whenever we changed the mattress cover.
I’m genuinely embarrassed to admit that, until this month, we STILL had that jagged, hand-cut slab of ugly foam on our bed…
We waited THIS LONG to replace our mattress because, frankly, the process always kind of seemed like a time-consuming pain. (Going to a store and trying out models, paying to have one schlepped to our place, hauling it into our tiny house, and then hoping that it felt juuuuust riiiiight in our bedroom, night after night.) But now that we’re co-sleeping with our 1 year-old son (plus our two year-old beagle, Sophee, insists on sleeping at our feet at night), we simply need a proper mattress.
I was a bit overwhelmed by the numerous “bed in a box” mattress options out there. I knew I wanted to try one, but I also wanted the option of selecting the level of mattress firmness that best suits our sleep style. I also wanted someone drop it off at the Cottage, AND pick it up for exchange if need be.
We decided to try out a tulo, mainly because we could choose between soft, medium or firm mattress models. (We went with medium.) We could’ve visited a Mattress Firm store, but the process of selecting a delivery date and time was so easy that I couldn’t resist just having the mattress dropped of on our doorstep.
Also, their delivery boxes are less wasteful by being mysteriously small for what they contain. Despite knowing that the tulo box was smaller than one would expect, I still cleared a path from the gate to our bedroom for the delivery team. When they arrived and unloaded a single, compact box from their enormous delivery truck full of massive mattresses, I legitimately laughed out-loud and asked them where the rest of our bed was. They pointed to the pink box and claimed it was all right in there.
I struggled to figure out how on earth a Queen-sized mattress was crammed in there. (Turns out it wasn’t crammed at all— apparently tulo uses a unique compression and folding process that doesn’t damage the foam in order to efficiently transport their mattresses.)
It took about 5 painless minutes to get the mattress set up— from unboxing, to unrolling, to cutting off the air-sealed bag around it. It was wild to see such a strong and durable mattress slowly rise from the pancake it was when in its packaging.
The first night we slept on it, I knew we wouldn’t have to exchange it. Our son was sick and had been sleepless and sweating for several nights in a row, but the first night with the tulo he stayed cool (as did we), and caught up on sleep by our side for 12 hours, with only one typical mid-night wakeup. And a happy baby meant a happy mom and dad— we slept better than we had in months.
So, tulo: thank you for this wonderful mattress, and thank you for the decadent level of sleep it has provided us. As new parents and small business owners, we really, really needed this.
For those who are interested in trying a tulo, visit a Mattress Firm store or order online at: www.tulo.com. (You have 120 days to decide whether or not you love it. Hopefully you’ll have the same experience as we did, and fall in love with it immediately.)
