You will buy a luxury bed perhaps four or five times in your whole life. So when you walk into a showroom, you are out of practice, and most people ask the wrong questions. They ask how firm it is and how many springs it has. Those are not the questions that protect you. After more than forty years in this trade, here are the ones I would want my own family to ask before spending this kind of money.
Why 'how firm is it?' is the wrong first question
Quick answer: Firmness should follow your body, not a label. The old belief that a firm bed is good for you is the most common and most damaging idea I meet in the showroom.
Hard is not good for you. It is good for a heavy person, and that is all. A firm mattress is built for someone around 120 to 130 kilos, so if you are lighter, you end up balancing on top of the bed instead of being held by it. Your spine is full of curves, and the bed has to fill those curves, not push back against them.
I see the damage of the firmness myth every week. Two customers came in recently both certain they wanted something firm. I put them on the firm bed they asked for, then on a softer one beside it, and watched their faces change. 'Oh, that feels better.' It does, because it fits you.
Hard is not good for you. That belief has done more damage to more backs than almost anything else in my trade.
Be wary, too, of a long sleep trial being sold as reassurance. A hundred-night return policy sounds generous, but it often means nobody took the time to match the bed to you in the first place.
What size bed should I buy?
Quick answer: The biggest your room will take. More space means better sleep, and crucially it means less of your partner's body heat reaching you in the night.
The first thing I ask anyone is whether they can fit a larger bed in the room. Size matters more than almost any other single choice. The more room you have, the more you can move and turn, and the further you can drift from your partner's warmth, which is what lets your body cool down enough to reach deep sleep.
One customer came in only to buy a chair and left with one of our Koh-I-Noor beds. He rang me a few weeks later, and the message was simple.
I'm sleeping so well.
Are the fillings natural? The temperature question almost nobody asks
Quick answer: This is the question you cannot test in a showroom, so you have to ask it. Natural fillings will not overheat you. Synthetic ones will.
You will be lying on the bed in your clothes for ten minutes, so you cannot feel how it will sleep at three in the morning. That is why you must ask what is inside it. A bed cannot make you cool, whatever the marketing says. But a bed full of natural materials, wool, cotton, horsehair, will not cook you the way foam and synthetics do. Heat is mostly about the room and the season. Your bed's job is simply not to add to it.
What does the guarantee actually cover?
Quick answer: The springs and the frame, not the soft fillings on top. A big 25-year number refers to the part that barely changes, while the comfort layers that do wear are not covered.
A long guarantee can mislead you, because people assume the whole bed is covered, and it is not. The warranty is on the spring unit and the wooden frame of the base. Those are the parts that last. When we first made our Marshall & Stewart beds, we sent the springs to be tested to British Standards, where a machine pounds them to simulate fifty years of use. Ours lost two to three millimetres over that lifetime. That is the quality of steel you are paying for.
What is not covered are the upholstery fillings, and that is fair, because those layers compact over the years. This is normal, not a fault. A slight settlement where the heavier partner sleeps is corrected by turning and rotating the mattress. And here is the trick the trade does not always explain: a topper changed every four or five years takes all that wear, so a mattress guaranteed for ten years can comfortably last fifteen or twenty.
Think of your topper like the tyres on a car. The spring will outlive all of us. It is the soft layers on top that wear, and a fresh topper every few years keeps the whole bed feeling new.
What happens on delivery, and will you take my old bed away?
Quick answer: A proper luxury service delivers to a booked time slot, sets the new bed up, and removes your old one hygienically. If the route in is tight, expect an access check first.
First, please do not hand your old mattress down to family. A used mattress is not something anyone should sleep on, for reasons of simple hygiene. The National Bed Federation makes the same point in its own buyer guidance. Let it go to recycling and start fresh.
When your bed is ready, usually four to eight weeks after order, we book a specific slot rather than making you wait in all day, and our team rings twenty minutes before they arrive. The new bed comes in, and the plastic that wrapped it goes straight onto your old one before it leaves, so nothing contaminates the van. We charge fifty pounds to take the old bed away, which is what the recycling centre charges us, so there is no profit in it. It is simply a service so you do not have to wrestle a mattress onto the pavement.
If your staircase or doorways are tight, we carry out an access check for £250, refunded against your purchase. It is worth it. We have lifted beds over balconies on ropes and passed them through bedroom windows on a track when the stairs would not take them. The bed is set up fully before we leave, and the carpet is often vacuumed too.
The one shift that matters most
Quick answer: Stop asking whether it is firm enough. Start asking whether it is the right size, whether it is natural, and how it feels to your body. The wrong bed is a ten-year mistake.
A luxury bed is a two-hour decision that you live with for a decade. Take the time. Get away from the firmness myth, go as large as your room allows, insist on natural materials, and trust what your own body tells you when you lie down. In 2026 we were named Best Bespoke Luxury Bed Manufacturer, and I was named Managing Director of the Year, but none of that matters as much as you leaving with the right bed for you.
Frequently asked questions
How long should I spend choosing a luxury bed?
Give it up to two hours. It feels like a lot, but it is two hours invested against eight hours a night for the next ten years or more.
Should I just buy the same bed I had before?
Probably not. You are not the same person you were when you bought it. Your weight, your age and your needs have all changed, so the right bed has changed too.
Is a firmer mattress better for my back?
No. That is the most persistent myth in the business. A bed should fill the curves of your spine and support you, and for most people that is not a hard bed.
Do you take my old mattress away?
Yes, for £50, which is what recycling costs us. We wrap it before it leaves your room and take it to be recycled rather than dumped.
Come and ask us in person
The best questions deserve real answers. Come to our East Sheen showroom, bring every doubt you have, and let us walk you through the bed that genuinely suits your body, with no pressure and no commission. That is the honest way to make a decision this important. Book your sleep consultation when it suits you.
