Sleeping On An Airweave Futon, The Early Days

“What is a futon?”, right? Exactly, I’m not sure I know either. I’m used to the idea of a mattress, and I think of a mattress as a bed. And a mattress has a certain look to it. It’s one of the biggest things in a home. Is it considered furniture? Or does it have it’s own category? I don’t know, and I don’t know again.

But something about a bed, or the look of what most people consider a bed, I haven’t necessarily liked, nor really thought of, aesthetically speaking that is. A bed was just a bed, it’s basics, and a mattress, whether 10”, 12”, 18”, whatever (the higher the better, right?), was just normal. And a bed is hard to hide without giving up comfort or changing your lifestyle to a degree. So I’ve let whatever mattress I slept on over the years just be. I didn’t always sleep on a mattress though, but that’s another story.

Growing up I didn’t consider my mattress much. Didn’t really think of it. And definitely didn’t know much about the quality of one versus another.

So about 2 years ago, after my wife and I had been sharing a twin bed for years, we finally decided to get a new mattress. Plus, learning further about how important a good night’s sleep was and that we shouldn’t not invest in a good mattress the search was on.

Options like Avocado and Casper came about, whether from seeing ads or word of mouth. Wow, it was something new to learn that mattresses easily can cost over $1,000. And if you want the “luxury” version or the “sleep on a cloud” or whatever other confusing marketing that happens when you even begin to consider a brand the prices can go way up.

Now, invest in a good quality bed, yes, I’m for that. But also consider your lifestyle and what you want, plus the various options out there.

For my wife and I, we should not have been sharing a twin for years, but there was a reason (or reasons?) for that. So when we decided to get a bigger bed we thought a queen would be a good bet, plus we probably deserved it after the years of something almost half the size.

A quick note on our lifestyle, we might be moving to Europe from New York City in the upcoming years, but before that maybe to another apartment, so we didn’t want to go too crazy with the “all-inclusive mind blowing mattress” that has everything and like 453 components, et cetera. We didn’t want to ship such a thing to Europe, so it really wasn’t worth it for us. On the other hand we didn’t want some nonsense that wouldn’t give us quality sleep.

We ended up choosing Allswell and got the basic model, The Allswell. From the research it seemed like a good bed overall, and I felt it was a great starting point, not only to getting a bigger bed, but also not going broke getting it. Plus with the free trial and 10-year warranty, we didn’t have much to lose.

I think a free trial is key in selling mattresses because how is anyone going to know what it really feels like without sleeping on it. It would be nice to live in an apartment for a free trial before moving in, but I don’t think that’s a thing right now, maybe ever. But a mattress, great, bring it on and let’s sleep.

In short, the Allswell was pretty amazing. I really enjoyed it, as it really did have the right firmness for me. It was great and I think it still is great. But one thing it still had was that “bed look” in the room. Just like Casper, Avocado, and pretty much any company that sells a mattress. I mean, duh, it’s a mattress, right?

Well, until I learned a bit about the futon. I still don’t know much about it, but it has to do with Japan if I’m not mistaken and it’s normal to have it as your “mattress replacement” or simply your bed that you can fold and store away.

At first I was skeptical. Probably still am because I’m still in the early days. But the development in my mind is far enough to be open to questioning everything, including why I would feel I should be sleeping on a mattress and not a futon.

So I thought and thought. I really don’t know why I’ve been sleeping on a mattress for most nights of my life other than that just being the normal thing to do. And it was hard to grasp this idea that a futon could be okay for me to sleep on for years to come or even be somehow better for me, which would be amazing.

A bit of background of myself, I haven’t really experienced back pain, nor felt like I’ve had bad sleep for most nights of my life. I’m 31, weigh about 138lbs, choose to aim to eat a variety of healthy food options, and feel like my overall health is good. And what I’d like still is a healthier lifestyle, but also an aesthetically beautiful one. I’m open to questioning everything I think I know about anything. I was born into an invented world, as kids are today. Everything is invented and the idea of tradition, what does that really mean if you go back enough before one tradition or another started. So with switching from a mattress to a futon I was open to it.

Some of the main reasons my wife and I decided to not only give the Airweave Futon a try, but a futon in general are as follows:

• It might actually be better for your back and alignment, resulting in healthier and better sleep, which if so, it’s worth if for that alone
• It doesn’t look like a bulky mattress
• It’s portable and we can move with it quite easily, whether to another apartment or country
• The Airweave is fully washable
• There was a free trial to try it out

With that said, once the Airweave Futon was spotted online somehow, it didn’t take us long before we just went ahead with it. Now note, because this checked so many boxes for us, price was almost irrelevant. Thinking back, it was over $1,000, for a futon! But if the quality is there, if it can last for years and years to come, if my sleep is healthier and better, if it’s aesthetically much more beautiful in my apartment than having a mattress, if it’s easier to move with and helps me be more portable, and if there’s a free trial to just give it a go, then the value that my wife and I can get from that $1,000+ may far outdo the cost of it.

But we’re still in the early stages right now. I’ve had maybe 2–3 weeks on it so far and don’t feel like I have problems sleeping. It certainly is firmer than The Allswell mattress and there is some getting used to still going on, but it’s not bad at all. Currently the futon sits elevated on a structure that has wood on top of it, so it’s as if it’s on a hardwood floor, but just an elevated hardwood floor. In terms of looks and aesthetics, it almost doesn’t even feel like we have a bed in the room. The look, with how slim it is and easy to move if we wanted to, really connects with perhaps the bigger vision we have in our life design journey. So, so far so great, but we are still in the early days and if we want to return it for a full refund we can, we still have plenty of time.