Rock-a-bye-baby – what makes commercial beds so comfortable?

The eternal question among contract and commercial bed manufacturers is “what makes a bed comfortable and how do we optimise that?”

Here at Millbrook Contract Beds we invest every single bed we make with love. And we’re not just saying that either. Every commercial bed that we manufacture is lovingly handcrafted and designed. We’ve learnt over the years to invest our contract bedroom furniture with an unrivalled quality, so we can actually answer this question…

What makes commercial beds so comfortable?

Well, it has a lot to do with the mattress of course and what goes into that mattress, but it very much rests on (no pun intended) the quality of the bed base. The bed base comprises many of the qualities which make commercial beds durable and most of all, comfortable.

First, let’s talk about the mattress.

There are four types of mattress that can be purchased for commercial bed buying purposes:

1. Pocket sprung is the most common type of mattress. The individual springs reside within fabric pockets and are independent of one another. These springs react to the pressure and positioning of the person who lies on top and contour to suit the shape of the sleeper.

2. Open sprung/open coil is a mattress comprising of circular springs that weave together to make a single spring unit. By applying pressure to one of them, you apply pressure to all of them. All the springs are connected together.

3. Orthopaedic is universally considered the best choice of mattress for people who suffer with back pain or have trouble getting to sleep. Millbrook has a special range designed to suit people like this – The Therapy. The idea behind them is that they support the spine in the correct alignment whilst avoiding localised pressure points. Orthopaedic mattresses are designed to mould and contour to the shape of your body.

4. Foam is regarded as the least impressive of mattress designs. You’ll hear most people refer to them as Memory Foam as they work with the sleeper’s natural body heat moulding to the curves of the body. Memory Foam is generally designed to relieve uncomfortable pressure points. However, finding a reliable Memory Foam mattress can be a task as many of them merely ‘sink.’ The best Memory Foam mattresses spread.

Of course, every mattress has its own benefits and inherent values it’s just they just won’t always be compatible with every person. Comfort can often be a subjective experience.

The next step of identifying what makes commercial beds comfortable and why, is looking at the bed bases:

1. Slatted base is definitely the most common bed base out there and used on bedsteads. The bed base is made up from wooden slats that support the mattress offering a firmer base. However, this is not necessarily the most comfortable option just because it is the most common. People who used wooden slatted bed bases experience many problems down the line.

2. Sprung edge is widely considered one of the finer bed bases. A Sprung Edge has springs to make the base more supportive helping to avoid uncomfortable hard edges. Sprung Edge bases work in conjunction with the mattress, ultimately making the mattress last longer.

3. Platform top is constructed of wood with a padded base making the bed feel firmer. This is suitable to those who prefer a really firm comfort option with their bed.

4. Sprung slatted base uses curved wooden slats that adjust to the sleeper’s profile. The idea is to get the slats to work in synchronicity with the mattress exerting and liberating the pressure sensitive areas.

Comfort comes from design, material and combination. The design must be of high quality and the bed base well-built with the right materials and fabrics used for the inside of the mattress. Comfort comes from various factors combined, and as we all know comfort can be in the eye of the beholder.

Of course, never underestimate the degree of comfort that comes from good quality duvets and pillows! Our next blog will address this aspect of commercial beds in more detail.

Contract and commercial beds are very much about combining science and art together to provide optimum sleeping solutions with choices to suit everyone.

A buyers guide to contract beds – part two: mattresses

Here at Millbrook Contract Beds we know that choosing a contract bed can be a difficult task. Previously we talked you through some of the features of a contract bed base and gave some advice about what to look for and how to choose one. So in the second part of this two-part series on how to buy contract beds, we thought we’d take a look at mattresses.

So what is available and how suitable how will it suit your businesses’ needs?

There are five main types of mattress available. Each is suited to different business and client needs and therefore it is important to understand which individual features relate to your specific circumstances. So if you are planning on buying a contract bed but would prefer to choose the mattress separately, then you may well find this blog of interest.

As we discussed in our previous blog, a bed base is an important factor in providing comfort for your guests. Indeed, the base is the primary factor in making a bed comfortable and durable. That said, however, mattresses enable you to tailor your contract beds to your guests’ needs. And remember, a headboard is also comprises an important part of the bed too!

There are five main types of mattress to consider: pocket sprung, open sprung, orthopaedic, memory foam and anti-allergy.

Pocket sprung

A pocket sprung mattress involves each individual spring being encases in its own fabric pocket this helps the bed to adjust its internal stresses and torsion in relation to the pressures of the person laying on it.

Open sprung

An open sprung system has the tradition mattress structure comprised of circular springs woven together to make a single unit. This interconnectedness of the structure enables the even distribution of pressure throughout the mattress.

Orthopaedic

An orthopaedic mattress is particularly well suited to people who suffer from joint or back pain and for insomniacs. Therefore, it is the ideal choice for a care environment. These mattresses help to support the spine and keep it in the correct alignment. This not only helps avoid acute pressure build-up but also moulds itself to the contours of the body.

Memory foam

A memory foam mattress reacts to body heat and reform itself to fit around the curves of the body. It is by far the most comfortable material for a mattress as it relieves pressure to the extremities of our bodies such as knees and forearms. A memory foam mattress can help prevent discomfort by providing support for your extremities.

Anti-allergy

An anti allergy mattress does not contain any loose fibres or allergens, and is bound up in a latex casing, which can prevent the growth of fungus, and the build up of dust and dirt that can attract minute pests like dust mites and bedbugs. Indeed, these tiny pests can be a major contributory factor to respiratory disorders and allergies such as asthma.

Having outlined the main types of mattress available, together some of their features, we hope that you have gained a clearer understanding of which ones are best suited to yours and your clients’ needs. However, if you would like to discuss the various options in more detail, then please contact us and we can advise you as to the best choice both for your business circumstances and your guests requirements.

Mattress Matters from Millbrook Contract Beds

A bed isn’t a bed without the mattress. Mattresses matter… a lot. The right mattress with the right contract bed base can be the difference between sweet dreams and a rough night of tossing and turning. A mattress combines with the bed base to give both comfort and support. Millbrook Contract Beds has decided to get into the specifics of why the mattress makes such a big difference to the sleep experience.

Choosing a mattress is just as important as choosing the right bed base. You can find the right mattress for yourself by following some simple steps to check that you’re getting the right one.

A good mattress should last up to 10 years so consider it as a worthy investment. As you would with any investment, know what you’re investing in. In other words, try before you buy. How else will you know if the mattress is suitable for you? There are different sizes, comfort levels and firmness options. Ideally you should buy your mattress and bed base together as a set, but it’s not always essential. Just make sure that if you do get them separately that they match each other both aesthetically and practically.

The most common types of mattresses are the following:

• Open spring – generally the most popular mattress type that gives a firm edge and retains the mattress shape
• Pocket spring – a more luxurious design where small springs are housed in separate fabric pockets
• Memory foam – it moulds to the shape and contours of your body providing support to posture and spine
• DPSS® (Double pocket spring system)- this is what you would deem as providing superior quality.  As the name suggests, you get all the comfort of an individually sprung mattress but doubled!  As you can imagine in terms of support this mattress really is luxury but more importantly it is also designed to offer longevity.

Finding the right mattress is really up to your body and its needs but we always recommend trying the mattress out first before choosing it. Showrooms are always happy to let you do this so long as you don’t jump up and down on it!

Once you have ownership of that mattress, treat it right. Air it out before laying it on the bed base. Give it a good few hours to freshen up and air out the storage smell.

With spring mattresses always turn it once a month to keep it balanced and the weight equally distributed so that it doesn’t go before it’s time.

Allow the bed access to circulation. In other words don’t stifle it with plastic sheets or electric blankets. Maintain that contract bed quality that you had on the day you bought it for years to come simply by allowing it to breathe every once in a while.

For more information on mattresses you can view our last blog or contact us at Millbrook Contract Beds to get some advice.

Ever wondered what’s inside a Millbrook Mattress?

As a leading contract bed maker and supplier, Millbrook Contract Beds takes pride in offering the very best in quality and the highest manufacturing standards to all its clients.

The fact that Millbrook offers contract beds that are comfortable is all down to the mattress but if you opened one up, what would you find?

In a contract bed mattress you will have interior springs which come in two types.  The open coil mattress and the pocket spring mattress.  Both offer comfort and luxury at different levels though.

An open coil mattress on a Millbrook Contract Bed is comprised of lots of individual springs that are specially joined together with wire.  As a general guide, you can expect there to be between two hundred and eighty and three hundred and twenty five springs in a five foot mattress.

For lighter use, this is ideal and offers a good amount of support and of course value for any contract bed buyer.

With a Millbrook pocket sprung mattress you will find even more luxury and comfort as this form of manufacture is generally considered to be the very best.  Each spring in the mattress is actually contained within a singular fabric pocket and therefore, will move independently to the other springs inside.  This is particularly comfortable because it means excellent support for the spine and longevity in terms of shelf life.

The spring counts within a mattress on a Millbrook Contract Bed will range between eight hundred through to three thousand and of course, as you would expect, the highest quality spring units are joined in two tiers, which tends to offer the very best support and comfort for the sleeper.

Of course there’s a lot more to a contract bed from Millbrook than this, such as traditional hand-side stitching, which essentially joins the outside springs to the border at the bottom and top, which is an excellent way to prevent what we call ‘roll-out’.  This is by far one of the most skilled and intensive parts of the manufacturing process, but it is most certainly worth it as it means the sleeping area of the bed goes right to the edge.

As always, we’re proud to offer over sixty years of experience in the supply of contract beds and mattresses so if you’re looking for some impartial advice on your next contract bed do contact us.

Millbrook Contract Beds presents The Children’s Guide to Sleep Part Three

We trust that everyone enjoyed their Christmas weekend? Was our prediction correct regarding the kids having an early night on Christmas Eve?

Millbrook Contract Beds enjoyed our time off with our families and friends but we did not forget about our promise to finish off the The Children‘s Guide to Sleep. As we established in the last two blogs (part one can be read here and part two can be read here) children need sleep in order to develop in terms of general health, physical well-being and mental functioning.

In this final part of our guide, which we hope has been of some use to people, we will give our last list of tips to help parents in their quest to get their kids to go to sleep!

So, how can you ensure that children get their required hours of sleep?

In the last blog we established the following data from actual research carried out over the years:

• Children aged between 4-6 sleep between 10½ to 11½ hours at night.
• Children aged 6-12 tend to sleep for almost 10 hours a night.
• Teenagers should get 8-9 hours of sleep a night.

Further to our earlier suggestions, beyond ensuring you have good quality contract beds and contract bedroom furniture, the environment a child or teenager sleeps in needs to be reconsidered and then redesigned for sleep.

What do we mean by this?

The multiplicity of distractions in the bedroom such as toys, computer consoles, games, internet access and/or television sets can turn the bedroom into a place for play rather than rest. Some children and teens have all of the above scattered about in there. Believe it or not but this is the most unhealthy thing to do for your children.

Circulating the air makes all the difference to a room filled with stale air. So make sure you air out the kids rooms well before the kids go to sleep as to make the room a cooler, fresher environment. This can be accomplished via simply opening the windows and door or installing basic air conditioning in the home so everyone can appreciate it.

Make sure their bedding is fresh and clean and that the sheets are washed regularly. This is an extension of another discipline – don’t allow your kids to eat in the bed! Many people do this and it is extremely unhygienic as the crumbs and food debris strewn on the sheets will cause sleep disruption, tossing & turning and will cause many children to stir awake during the night and irritate their skin.

Whatever the choice is for contract beds, just be sure to flip the mattresses regularly, once a week if possible and air out the sheets. One of the biggest no-nos is that you should never use hand-me-down mattresses for children. The second-hand mattress is the cause of the very issues that you are aiming to prevent.

So treat a child’s bed with care and pay their sleep routines due attention, as these early years are the most pivotal time for a child’s growth.

For more information from Millbrook Contract Beds regarding our contract bedroom furniture and commercial beds, please Contact Us.

Contract beds for student housing

Academic contract beds

When it comes to decking out student housing with all the bells and whistles of comfortable living, it’s important to balance economy, feasibility and practicality. That’s even more important when kitting out student bedrooms with that crucial piece of furniture: the bed. Millbrook Contract Beds has a range of affordable contract beds that suit the needs of landlords looking to fill their houses with tenants.

The Academic Collection from Millbrook Contract Beds services every possible situation, location and need that comes with the hectic job of filling your property with furniture in preparation for the arrival of your tenants.

After Christmas is another busy time for landlords decorating student accommodation, as they find a spurt of students looking to switch accommodation after their first student digs didn’t work out.

Millbrook Contract Beds’ Academic Collection is excellent value for money because these beds can go the distance in terms of their lifespan. They are strong, durable and great for space-saving. The other advantage is the  hygiene factor, as these beds come with wipe-clean mattress surfaces. All the bases are sturdy and there are multiple choices available for the bed frames and legs.

The Residence

The Residence has a PVC mattress cover and is highly practical and durable in many types of locations. As far as beds go for student accommodation, The Residence Bed is a simple and functional bed that serves the basic purpose. It will last longer than most beds with a sturdy frame and headboard designed for serious punishment. The Residence may be basic, but it doesn’t compromise on comfort or hygiene. The mattress is woollen felt for softness and extra comfort and the surface is wipe-clean. This is the bed  to choose if the tenants are messier than normal.

The Conference Bed

The Conference Bed has an open coil mattress on a metal skid leg base. It’s a very functional and basic bed, but it’s a good contract bed option for student housing. The mattress is completely breathable, which prevents odours and dissipate body heat for the person sleeping in it. The advantage of this one is that it comes with a wipe clean mattress. That’s a huge benefit in student housing, where parties can go awry or dinner can be spilt onto it. All the student needs to do in such circumstances is take off the sheet and wipe it clean.

The Campus Bed

A smart design featuring open coil springs, standard comfort level. The Campus Bed is the next step up in terms of aesthetic and comfort for student housing. Millbrook Contract Beds offers this one with a stitchbond cover to keep the mattress very clean; the coils are open coil springs for added comfort. There are no drawers, but the legs are removable if you want to adjust the height on the bed.

As a provider of contract beds, we think it’s important to offer ranges like these to suit the particular needs of student housing and bedroom furniture. To learn more about pricing or further details on the beds, please contact our team.

Contract Beds and their mattresses. A guide for every industry.

When it comes to a contract bed, the mattress plays a very significant part in how you measure it’s suitability for use.

Whether you are a small hotel or large chain hotel, the contract beds you choose and the mattresses that are used can play a major role in ensuring optimum comfort for your guests, often being a key factor in their overall experience of your brand.

So, after our previous blog that focused on the insides of a mattress, this one is all about the outside and the upholstery techniques and fillings used to offer premium support and comfort to the user.

Essentially while the coils affect how much support is given to the person sleeping in the contract bed the upholstery is vital for holding everything in place.

A good, higher quality mattress will contain loose fibres, usually comprising of lamb’s wool, cotton and even silk.  They tend to have cords that pass through the mattress (known as tufts) that keep all of the fibre in place and prevent things like sags or migration of fillings to the edges of the mattress.

So how do you identify a good quality mattress?

If a contract bed mattress is ‘hand-side stitched’ this means that a human being has carefully finished a mattress to a higher than average level.  The process of this kind of work means that the border is sewn to the internal spring unit by hand and therefore helps to strengthen it beyond any machine stitching methods.  It is also a sign of the highest quality of manufacture.

Hand-side stitching can give a mattress on a contract bed a longer life too, which in terms of economical investment can be a very sensible option.

However, that is not to say that every mattress needs to be hand-stitched and that you should ignore a machine stitched mattress on a contract bed at all.

If you’re a business that is looking for an economical but comfortable option, then you may consider a developed method of machine side stitching that offers a relative quality but at a more economical price.

Of course it will have differences to those of a hand-stitched mattress, but if it is created with an experienced manufacturer, it can be a great investment.

As we always recommend it’s always best to get advice on all aspects of contract beds and their mattresses, so do feel free to contact us if you have a question or two.

Our next blog is going to focus much more on the base of a contract bed, so please do drop by for more updates soon.

Millbrook Contract Beds is a leading manufacturer and supplier of contract beds in the UK