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March is National Bed Month at David Phipp
March is National Bed Month. The National Bed Federation celebrate and raise awareness of how important a good, supportive and comfortable bed plays in achieving a healthy night’s sleep - helping us wake up on the #RightSideOfTheBed every morning.
This month is aimed to remind us all of why a sound sleep is good for our health, makes you happier and can even add years to your life!
A groundbreaking study in 1988 found that by switching an uncomfortable old bed to a new comfortable one meant an extra 42 minutes of sleep per night!
You spend more of your life in bed than anywhere else. What we sleep on plays a huge part in how well we sleep so the right bed should be your Nº 1 priority. A poor quality, unsupportive bed could rob you of a good nights sleep!
The bed has come a long way since its humble beginnings. It has been reinvented time and time again and continues to evolve as people demand a higher level of comfort and support.
Back in the 17th Century long before the steel coil, inner springs and high-tech memory foam, humans slept on layers of reeds, rushes and leaves. Then came piles of straw, woven mats and cloth sacks filled with hay.
By the 18th Century beds were usually made of wood and metal bed frames were starting to become popular, with cotton stuffed mattresses replacing down or hay. These mattresses were then suspended in bed frames with a system of wool straps or ropes. One of the biggest changes during the 18th century however, was the concept of the bedroom as a private space for sleep, this idea became firmly entrenched throughout all classes of society.
The 19th Century saw early mattresses made from a variety of natural materials including straw, feathers or horse hair and by the first half
of the 20th century, a typical mattress sold in North America had an
innerspring core and cotton wadding or fibrefill.
Nowadays of course we are spoilt for choice. Natural fillings including cotton, wool, hair and coir fibre and are still used in mattress production. For added luxury silk, cashmere and mohair fillings are used in a range of quality beds. Of course non-sprung mattresses have also become very popular with memory foam being a firm favourite.
At David Phipp House Furnisher in Ferndown, the bedding department have Bed Month offers on all beds and bedroom furniture in their Bed Month Sale. Experienced sales staff will be able to recommend a bed that suits all your requirements, enabling correct support and comfort. They will guide you through the key factors in choosing a new bed, size options, support needs, budget, style, storage and space. Zip and link options for couples with different support requirements are also available.
Leading manufacturers such as VISPRING, Tempur, Hypnos, Sleepeezee, Dunlopillo and are all on display. The bedding department offers one of the largest displays of adjustable beds in the South of England. Visit the showrooms in March and take advantage of exceptional Bed Month Offers and remember to ask if you are eligible for VAT exemption.
Last but not least a few fun bed facts, did you know...
- One of the first beds was not such a humble piece of furniture. It measured 18 feet by 12 feet long, this bed could hold as many as 65 sleepers.
- Tutankahmun’s bed was crafted from gold.
- The ancient Egyptians did not use pillows on their beds, but instead had a carved headboard that was shaped so that they could lay their neck on it to sleep.
- The largest bed on record measures in at 86 feet and 11 inches by 53 feet 11 inches. It was created in The Netherlands in 2011 and is in The Guinness Book of World Records.
- The word mattress is an Arabic word meaning “throw”
- The water bed is more than 5000 years old and used to be made of goat skins
- A mattress has between 100,000 and 10 million dust mites in it!
- The first coil springs were used for chairs
- It is illegal to purchase a mattress on Sundays in Washington
- The fitted sheet was invented in 1958
- The phrase “sleep tight” comes from the fact that mattresses used to rest on ropes
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