Even though I have been living with my husband for near on 10 years now, we have only just really started purchasing "new" things for our home.
Many of the pieces of essential furniture we have was either bought very cheaply to cover a need or, in most cases, off my mum! (she buys something new, see's that we need it and can't afford it, then persuades my dad that she now dislikes the afore mentioned purchase, enabling her to buy something else and giving us the original, she's great!)

We, in our entire time together, have owned three beds, all bought for pennies from my mother in laws catalogue.
Unfortunately, I have broken every single one of them!

The first for obvious reasons, newly weds and all of that and the second and third time due to the fruits of the afore mentioned reason, by being very pregnant and very fat!

My husband has now just about had enough of getting up from what should be a peaceful nights slumber, to feel like he has gone ten rounds in the boxing ring, so putting his foot down with a firm hand he frog marched me down to our local branch of Dreams.

Now I am no expert in bed buying but was more than aware of the massive sale that is currently taking place there, with most stock having 50% knocked off the original price, but still I feel dubious.

We walked through the massive double automatic door and entered a beautiful, clean and fresh looking establishment, at the time we were the only customers in there and a member of staff came straight over to us, this annoyed my husband immensely but was glad when he realised the staff member just wanted to explain how the pricing sheets worked, then left us alone.

We were faced with 15 different types of double and single beds on the ground floor, picking the base we liked the look of, to realising there were more on the first floor and having our minds changed again!

In the end we chose a delightful "sleigh" design bed, made from antique pine, and after I had suitably embarrassed my husband enough, (I had to check how comfy the beds were!), we now only had the mattress to pick.

The mattress's are graded on a 1 - 5 scale, 1 being the firmest up to 5 the softest. We were on the look out for the television advertised "memory foam" mattress, but after sitting on it, I realised it made me feel motion sick as it keeps moving as it moulds to your body.
We decided on a grade 4 pocketed mattress that in fairness is sublime, unfortunately the way the assistant had described the pricing sheets lead us to believe we were getting more of a bargain than we actually were!

All the beds that come separately from the headboard can be purchased as a set price, with the cost of the headboard being added on, which makes the bed seem more than a reasonable price, our bed was a solid base with headboard and foot board, so was not to be priced the same!

We get to the counter and the assistant works out a final price for the bed and mattress -

Lockwood base - £489
Double pocketed spring mattress - £299

Making this bed - £788.

Ok, so this was not too bad a price to my way of thinking, then the dreaded extras started being added!
We wanted to take advantage of the 12 months interest free credit, so I was sure to ask if we would incur any penalties for paying the balance in a couple of months time (which I fully intend on doing), he said no, then decided to inform us that as the credit account is through Barclays bank, they do charge a small fee of £19.00, to close the direct debit account down, this by the way has to be set up in case the purchase is not paid in full in the allocated 12 months period. - £19.00

Next was the delivery of our new bed, the assistant told us it was in stock and could be delivered as early as the next day, unfortunately my husband and myself both work during the week, so we asked for a Saturday delivery slot, this bumped the price up by £10.00.Of course we had to agree, as we could see no other way of getting it this side of Christmas! - £10.00

We were then told that standard delivery would be the base in flat pack form along with mattress to the front door only, which was fine with us. - £0

Of course he went on to say, if we were interested they did an "old bed collection" service, that meant someone would go into our bedroom, bring the old bed and base down and then send them to be recycled. He said everything on an old mattress could be recycled, even down to the springs. I f we wanted this service it would cost us £29.00, which I did agree to as it sounded like an easier and possibly more environmental choice for us. A green sack was provided to put the mattress in, I can only assume that is for hygiene reasons. - £29.00

Finally a "goodwill gesture", we were offered a lorry to bedroom delivery of our new bed and mattress due to the fact they were going up there anyway! This would only cost an extra £3.00, rather than the £27.00 charge we would have been facing, by this time my face must have been thunderous, as the assistant even threw in a large Dreams branded "mummy bear", free of charge! (Incidentally, my kids have done nothing but fight over it since!)- £3.00.

Total cost - £849

Ok, so this is still not a bad price, but I'm not going to let the assistant know that, and in turn helped myself to a rather large handful of free mints and Dreams badges!

We set up the direct debit for the interest free credit, got out receipt and awaited Saturdays delivery!

Delivery day - We had had a phone call from the bloke we had been served by at the store on the night prior to delivery, just to confirm that he had passed on all the relevant information to the delivery people and that they would ring Saturday morning to confirm the delivery time.

At 8.20 am, the phone call arrived, I have to be honest I did panic a little, more for the fact that they rang the house line and due to the fact we were all still in bed, rang my husbands mobile straight after, we usually only get phone calls like that when there is a problem!

I managed to get to the phone for the second call and the driver informed me we were due to have our bed delivered that morning between 9 - 11,
The bed actually arrived at 8.50, I obviously couldn't help as I was halfway through putting my slap on!
The delivery driver and his assistant were very helpful and courteous, they took our old bed base and mattress first then brought our new bed in, which came flat pack, in five different boxes.

Assembly - Ok, so you will just have to take my husbands word for this as Saturday was my day in at work, and in fairness I don't do general DIY while he's off, I cook and clean he should do something to earn his keep! (lol).
His exact words were " it was a piece of piss", which I took to mean, "wow, yes it was real easy to assemble my love!"

And trust me if he can do it anyone can!

And that is pretty much it as far as my tale goes, the bed is a complete joy, finally my husband is getting a decent nights sleep, and I feel more rested than I have done in a while.

As we have not had to ring customer services I couldn't comment on there efficiency but if the rest of the service is anything to go by, you are guaranteed an excellent service.

There is a 30 day money back guarantee on the mattress, so even if there is nothing wrong with it and you just decide the mattress is too soft or too firm, you can swop it for a different one.

For more information on all the products available visit - www.dreams.co.uk

Thanks for reading x