Since I moved into my apartment in September 2020, I’ve spent most of time and money focusing on the most highly trafficked areas of my apartment—my desk area, my kitchen, my living room, and my balcony. Given I keep a busy travel schedule, which is demanding on my budget, I have to save up between purchases for my apartment—especially because I would rather invest in pieces I can keep a long time instead of just buying something to fill a space. So I’ve slowly, but surely, been making some changes to my bedroom.

When I first moved into this apartment, my bedroom looked much like it did in my old Arlington apartment. I had pretty much all the same furniture—a full size bed with the upholstered nail headboard, my vintage green dresser, and my nightstands. I loved the look of the room overall, but wanted to make some tweaks as my design has evolved some and my needs have changed. My room is still very much a work in progress as I’d like to get another dresser (I am in desperate need of more storage space!), swap out the lamps on my nightstands, and hang a gallery wall to complete the space—once it’s complete, I’ll share a full room tour. But in the interim, I wanted to give you a look at the changes I’ve made so far. Starting with…

THE GREAT MATTRESS SAGA OF 2021

During the first three years of my academic career at UVA, I always lived in housing that came furnished—the dorms, an on-grounds apartment, the sorority house. So when my friends and I signed a lease for an apartment on Wertland Street for our fourth year, I needed to get a mattress. The summer before school started, my mom and I went mattress shopping and after laying on nearly every option in the store, we found an amazing pillow-top option that I ordered in a full size. It was so comfortable that I held onto it longer than I probably should have, but it ended up working out perfectly given a queen size bed would have been really tight in my Dupont Circle studio.

When I moved back to Arlington, I knew I wanted to get a new mattress and upgrade to a queen size since I had more space. Because of said move, I received a really nice tax return last year and decided to use that money to buy a new mattress. While I know ordering a mattress online is the thing to do these days, I wanted to go test them out in the store. Because the mattress I loved was a Beautyrest, I looked up which mattress stores near me carried that brand. I found a Mattress Firm about a 10 minute drive away from my apartment that had several Beautyrest options on the showroom floor. My sister, Jennifer, agreed to go shopping with me as a second opinion, so we made a day of it.

When we arrived in the store, the sales guy showed us the Beautyrest options and I really liked both the 12.25″ Beautyrest Pressuresmart Plush Mattress and the 14.75″ Beautyrest Pressuresmart Plush Pillow Top Mattress. After he tried to upsell us on some more expensive options, Jennifer and I went back to those two Beautyrest options, which were conveniently located right next to each other. I like really soft mattresses, and both thought the 12.25″ Pressuresmart Plush Mattress was the winner. After negotiating, I placed the order and it was scheduled to be delivered to my apartment later that week.

That first night, when I went to bed, I knew I made a huge mistake—I should have gone with the pillow top mattress option. It was just far too firm for me to get comfortable, And, clearly, I didn’t take into account the fact that the store model was probably extra soft given how many people test it out.

I spent the next two days obsessively searching, “how long does it take to break a mattress in?” and reading Reddit threads, online reviews, and any article I could find comparing the two mattress options. On the third day, I decided I was absolutely miserable—and admittedly, a little dramatic, probably due to the lack of sleep—and knew I needed to just go back to Mattress Firm and beg for mercy. You see, they have a 30-day return policy—you can return a mattress, but only after sleeping on it for a month. But I figured it was worth asking if they could make an exception, and figured I’d have the best luck if I went over there in person.

So one day on my lunch break, I headed back over to Mattress Firm, and to my luck, the manager was the one that greeted me. I explained my situation and told him while I respected their policy, I could absolutely not make it another 27 nights on the aforementioned mattress and that I’d like to exchange it. To my delight, he said that would be no problem and that he’d grab someone to help me. Turns out, the person he asked to do my exchange was the original sales guy—who understandably was a little frustrated, probably because it hurt his commission. It was a slightly awkward transaction as a result, but I was just so relieved that it worked out that I didn’t mind a few uncomfortable minutes. And, to top off my luck that day, the pillow top mattress was on sale, so I was able to get it for the exact same price I had paid for the original mattress, without having to negotiate further. (Because let’s be real, I was not going to push my luck on this one!)

You could say there are two morals to this story. First, I am a pillow top mattress person. Second, if you don’t ask, the answer is always no.

I’ve had my 14.75″ Beautyrest Pressuresmart Plush Pillow Top Mattress for a little over a year now and I am so happy with it. It’s the newer model of the old mattress I had, and is just so, so, so comfortable—it certainly makes getting out of bed in the morning a challenge! If you’re like me and want to feel like you’re sleeping on a cloud, I can’t recommend this one enough.

Read more “A Look at My Bedroom — And a Story About the Time I Returned a Mattress”