We're told we need on average 8 hours sleep a night, which means, we are spending a third of our life in bed! So if we are to make it to 90 years old, 30 years of it will be spent in bed. That's my entire life so far! It's pretty hard to comprehend!
While we both wish we got a full 8 hours a night, we certainly aren't Margret Thatcher (who allegedly ran on just 4 hours a night). If we are spending this long in bed, we need to spend a good amount of time researching how to create our own perfect sleeping haven.
Just like the tale of Goldilocks, luxury and the perfect sleeping 'Cloud 9' is different from person to person and one shoe won't fit every foot.We've discovered this from when we first starting sharing a bed together. Carlos would prefer it to be cool quilt, a high stack of pillows and pitch black in the room, where as I prefer a heavy quilt, extra warm and open curtains to rise with the sun.
When we decided to upgrade our bedroom, we knew the bedding needed to be done as well.
After a spending a night at the Haymarket hotel in London late last year, we woke up and stripped the bedding back (as you do!) to try and spy where it was from, luckily we found the label and came across Tielle Love Luxury.
I'm sure that plenty of you out there (like us) have had a taste of a hotel bed and just wished you could pick it up and take it with you? That's exactly what we felt like that morning, so when we realised you could actually purchase it for your home, we genuinely did a little squeal and high fived each other (Carlos will hate to admit it!). Lots of brands claim to be 'hotel standard' and use such titles in their product naming but Tielle Love Luxury actually IS luxury hotel bedding for your home.
Before we get to more information about the bedding, what we chose and some tips, we wanted to let you know we actually started by getting a new mattress too. We wanted to ensure we'd have something to help balance our hot / cold issues from above and below. After much research we decided to go with a Simba mattress, we liked the fact that it seemed to combat the two different sleeper issues we had and with 100 day free trial.....what did we have to lose? It was safe to say that after we'd had the mattress out in the living room for a short time while it took its mattress form, the moment we decided to lie down on the bad boy, we knew it wouldn't be going back! This mattress feels firm and supportive (which is what we look for with our bad backs) but also had this upper soft 'sink in' layer which gave you this most amazing feeling like you were floating on a cloud. We really haven't looked back since getting this mattress and can highly recommend it to others.
Personally, we think that there is nothing better than the night you get into fresh bedding. Maybe you've been away for the weekend and you have come home, remembering that you put fresh sheets on before you left. Or simply a long day at work and you're returning to your dry sheets to put straight on the duvet and to hop ya butt straight into the bed. Really, we may be old souls, but this is a simple pleasure in the life we love. What can beat it? Truly the only thing that can be, is that first night in bed with a completely new bedding set... a new duvet, pillow, bed sheets and mattress. The first night in ours was a night we truly savoured!
Since we share a bed with two dogs (not always our choice, but unlikely we'd have it any other way!) and we sleep separate to each other, there's a lot of pulling at the duvet, rolling over and general moving around in the bed. We started by getting a king size duvet for our king size bed (seems logical!) but realised this didn't give us enough extra duvet for us to play tug of war with so, instead, we decided to change our duvet to a super king sized one. This helped not only with the coverage of us personally, but we also liked it because it dropped down further to the floor on all sides of the bed which can help hide any under bed mess too!
This is actually the first duvet we had (which is now on the guest bed - sorry guests!) and its the king sized one. You can see the width is fairly decent and if it wasn't for the dogs going right in the middle and restricting movement, it would have been perfect for us.
It's also much nicer for tucking into the sides of the bed frame if you wanted to get that clean and tidy hotel look to your bed.
We had also initially gone for the European down duvet 10.5tog - while this was a gorgeous and super lightweight quilt (it’s filled with 100% goose down and light as a feather), we were used to (here's a goldilocks and the three bears moment) something with a bit more bulk and weight to it so, on our next quilt we also changed to the Savoy feather and down as due to the mix of 70% Duck Feather and 30% Duck Down filling, it gave a weightier feeling, even though the tog (the warmth it provided) was exactly the same. It's all down to personal preference!
Both us work from home and so although we have a home office space downstairs, we have a slightly different relationship with how we want to relax in the evening. We spend so much time downstairs in the day that the transition to upstairs feels like our version of clocking off and coming home from work. So we can actually spend a fair bit of our spare time chilling in the bedroom and maybe watching a movie together. That is why it's a top priority for us to get everything right.
Not only do we like a firm pillow for sleep, we also like it as support for sitting up in bed together to talk, plan and relax.
If you, like us, had been sleeping on your pillows for quite a few years (actually we lost track on how many years..), and were not quite sure when it’s time to upgrade, then mostly likely it’s time to invest in a new pair. We found this out by taking the Tielle Love Luxury pillow test. Simply place a pillow over your arm, if it folds over like an old saddle bag, then it’s time to upgrade.
We're a big fan of pillows and one of those couples who have to remove pillows from the bed daily before we can get into it. But - we just love to sink into them, moving them around us to help create support, an extra rest or just a little extra nook in the bed to get cosy in. So, we decided that when we got around to choosing the pillows we'd buy one of each type of firmness, so we could test each pillow and pick which ones were best for us. I find mixing and matching pillow structure can be better than buying 4 of the same pillow because even sometimes from night to night, we want something different in support.
There isn't much to see in size difference but here you can see the soft, medium & firm pillows. Seems like Luna is a girl who favours the softer pillow!
The three grades of pillow we went for (and their contents) were as follows:
Soft - European Goose Down - These pillows are luxuriously soft with clusters of lightweight down for breathability and a down-proof cover preventing interrupted sleep. Due to the high down content, these pillows are incredibly soft.
Medium - Savoy Duck Feather and Down - These pillows are 70% duck feather and 30% duck down and perfectly balance softness with structure. These pillows are used at hotels including Claridges and Gidleigh Park and are the brands most requested item. Due to the higher feather content, they provide more structure and will prop you up.
Firm - Marquis Duck Feather & Down Pillow - These are filled with high 85% duck feather and 15% down which gives it a lot more structure and that firmer support.
We've never actually treated ourselves to what I would class as 'grown up bedding'. You know the type when you don't just look at the pattern and the price tag and think, which looks prettiest and is the cheapest? Instead we're actually looking at the details of the fabric, the quality and deciding which is the best for an investment for us. To sleep better, wake better and feel better.
We needed to team our bedding with, of course, a new duvet set to compliment the new quilt. We'd always gone for patterns and darker colours and this time decided we'd go crisp and white! We settled on their 400 thread count soft and strong range. This is the exact linen The Dorchester use in their hotel – and I mean, who doesn’t want to sleep at The Dorchester every night?! We don't like anything that is too satin shiny, although that buttery softness always feels amazing, so this 400 thread count set gave us the best of both worlds, a subtle shine and that soft worn in feeling. The shine is actually super subtle and worked perfectly for us.
We do somedays slightly regret going for white bedding with two dogs, but as we discovered in one of the Tielle Love you tube videos, you can actually wash your cottons at 90 degrees which helps pretty much melt away any dirt and oils. Plus we might treat ourselves to the cool grey set soon as well!
To be honest, if you are anything like us, you might find the whole shopping for bedding thing quiet stressful. Not knowing what you are going to want tog wise, feel and / or support. But what Tielle Love lacked in a physical shop, they more than made up for through the information on their website and you tube channel. It was from watching these videos that we were helped to pick exactly what we needed to suit our preferences so, while you should check out their full channel HERE - I wanted to highlight some of the key ones which we found the most useful to us when buying!
> WASH YOUR BEDDING AT 90 DEGREES
> PRE-SOAK ANY EXTRA TOUGH DIRT PRE-WASH
> DON'T TOTALLY DRY OUT YOUR BEDDING BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT TO IRON IT, LEAVE IT JUST A LITTLE BIT DAMP|
> DON'T OVERLOAD YOUR WASHING MACHINE WHEN CLEANING YOUR QUILT. JUST WASHING IT ON ITS OWN SHOULD HELP THE CLEANING PROCESS
There would definitely be a younger version of us laughing at 30- something us for getting so excited and posting on our blog about bedding. Does this mean we are officially old? We think not... we just know the reality is of a good nights sleep now!
We hope you found this round up helpful and we do really recommend Tielle Love Luxury to anyone who is ready to invest in their sleep. We also love that you can buy baby bedroom set quilts too called Tiny Tielle... maybe one day hey ;)