Decoration has gotten a bad rap, and so has the appellation “decorator” as opposed to “designer.” There is a very real distinction between the two terms, mostly in that some states license designers, but let decorators go willy-nilly into that great world of paint color and fabric swatches without state approval. This distinction has led to some ugly (yet beautifully mocha-toned, with a cream trim) mud-slinging  between the two camps. 

Often, there is a bit of an assumption that decorators aren’t quite as serious, or as well-trained, as designers, with everyone wanting to insist that they do more than just decorate. 

And this raises the question: what’s wrong with decoration? Snubbing decoration is, in my mind, a bit like snubbing reading fiction, or looking at art, or enjoying rap music. Isn’t life to be enjoyed, in all the wild and wacky variety we humans have evolved to keep ourselves entertained? 

Sure. At least, Steven Heller agrees with me. Or, to be more accurate, I agree with him.  

On a less contentious matter, Patti writes in about the mattress question, with a link to a source for mattress information and a question: “I was thinking I’d test-drive the mattresses and then order the one I liked online or from one of those discount phone places (1-800-mattress or whatever). Any thoughts on that plan? I’ve heard mixed things about discount places.” 

Well, as a matter of fact, I do have some thoughts there. First of all, I do not like the check-it-out-in-the-real-store-then-buy-online method if you’re talking about a small, Mom and Pop store. But there are so few of these left that chances are you’re not. The Internet, after all, and the advent of online shopping, was certainly the cause of the sudden demise of so many of our beloved little shops in
America.  

But, assuming we’re talking about just another mega-store, I vote yes. In fact, I use this method often myself, and got a great deal on some Wegner dining chairs by going online, but, smart shopper that I am, first I tested them out in the store.But the whole mattress-buying venture has proven so confusing, so intimidating, and so discouraging that I advice you to just stay with your futon on the floor and find a good chiropractor.

Patti also says: “Oh, and did you know the etymology/history of “mattress”?  

Pretty neat. 

Have you ever wondered about Thanksgiving décor? I am wondering about it right now myself. Not because I have any, thank god, but because my neighbors’ apartment door now has a bunch of corn, what we used to call “Indian Corn” tied in a little bouquet and somehow (duct tape? Crazy Glue?) attached to it, just below the peephole.  

There’s something about this that really bothers me. Maybe in the country, where there are real farms growing real corn (Indian or otherwise), this tradition makes sense, but in the heart of New York City it seems out of place. Likewise with pilgrim hats or turkey feathers.  

Most of us wouldn’t recognize a feathered turkey if we ate one.  

Okay, that’s it for my holiday spirit. Sorry if I’m a spoil sport, but the turkeys I like best are the chocolate ones.

This is about the weirdest thing. 

No, that’s a tremendous exaggeration. There are many other weirder things. But really, going into a bed store in mid-town Manhattan, mid-day, and taking a nap in nearly-silent, windowless room, is right up there. 

Apparently not so weird, however, for the clerks at the Dux store. There, the clerk happily remembered my appointment and escorted me into the room, showing me the hook for my clothing, assuring me I wouldn’t be disturbed. 

The only thing I was disturbed by was the utter weirdness of the experience. But my napping ability won out, and I got into the bed, and actually managed to doze off for a few minutes, lulled by the distant hum of bed-buyers in the show room. There was something both thrilling and very creepy about taking a nap there, with all these customers walking around just on the other side of the door, having no idea there was someone napping mere feet away.  

That said, I bet what you really want to know is whether the bed was comfortable.  

Well, it was. I thought I could, indeed, feel that it was kind of absorbing my weight in a way that my own bed doesn’t. I could feel that I could sink into the bed more, and it felt just delicious. 

But maybe it feels delicious to lie down anywhere in the middle of the afternoon. 

In the end, I left the showroom not entirely convinced, and decided to follow up with a trip to ABC Carpet and Home, the great palace of design here in Manhattan. I’ll tell you about it next time.

Well, it seems beds and bedding and mattress choice is on more minds than just Stylehound’s.  

One reader writes in to report that after buying a Sealy, they brought it back within three months because it was sagging, then were happy with a latex mattress from Ikea.  

And another reader, bless her critical little heart, writes in to agree with me about the hokey name of Select Comfort/Sleep Number. 

She goes on to say: 

“For a long time I thought the Sleep Number Bed was a fictional product made up by Garrison Keillor because he was always pitching them on The Prairie Home Companion. Then one day I realized it was the name of a real sponsor.“Then later I saw an ad for the Sleep Number bed on TV, and it was so strange I started to wonder again if the whole thing was a joke. It featured a man lying on a bed with his labrador retriever, talking about what Sleep Number his ex wife had been. And how handy that he had this adjustable bed, because when he found another wife, all he’d have to do is reset the Sleep Number. Actually, it sounds kind of funny now that I’m retelling it. But it wasn’t.” 

Brother. Will these bed makers stop at nothing? My appointment to have a nap in a Dux bed is this week. As soon as I wake up, I’ll let you know how it went. 

Once Sam and I had collected ourselves after our ill-fated Bedgate at Macy’s, I started noticing that indeed, I was waking up feeling tired and stiff and unhappy—the primary symptom of need a new bed.  

So I more seriously launched into the research on this whole question of buying a bed, and discovered something called the Sleep Number Bed. 

And the Duxiana Bed.  And then I was heading down the road into a world I never thought I would enter, the World of the Rich and the Very Rich, or at least the world of the beds of those people. Essentially I no longer even cared about Sam and The Bachelor and their bedding problems. The more I researched beds, the more I realized that I myself was in dire need of a new one. So, why not trot myself back to Macy’s and shell out? 

Well, like all things in décor, it isn’t quite that simple. Okay, first there are regular beds, as we’ve seen.  Mattress, box spring, coils, hand-tied, you know. The things you get at Macy’s or some other department store. 

And then there are the beds that operate on a completely different system, such as some kind of foam stuff or air pumps or even, gadzooks, horsehair. 

These start with the Sleep Number Bed. Go into a Sleep Number store and chances are the clerk will launch an elaborate demonstration to show you how the bed works, which essentially is by pumping air into and out of the chambers in the mattress. She’ll also hand you a little brochure with pictures and mysterious phrases like “Dual Foam Layering System.” 

If you’re thinking this is just a fancy air mattress, you’re thinking like me. Now, I did take it upon myself to go into the Sleep Number store and lie on the bed and I did find that as a matter of fact (or could I say “as a mattress of fact”?) it felt pretty good. And if you sleep with someone, there’s the advantage that each side of the bed has its own pump, so you can have a firmer or softer mattress than your bedmate, which presumably prevents marital discord. 

Let’s not go there right now. 

But even though the clerk assured me that this wouldn’t mean getting up every couple of hours and pumping up the bed again, I just couldn’t quite buy it. Plus, what if something sharp, like a clawed cat, jumped on it too hard? (By the way, I don’t think my cats would tolerate those things you stick on the claws to prevent torn up sofas and such.  

And I just want to go on the record here as saying that while de-clawing a cat is nowhere near as terrible as waterboarding a human being, it’s a really, really, bad idea.)  

Another thing that turned me off from the Sleep Number Bed was the hokey name. The Sleep Number Bed is made by Select Comfort. Both these names are hokey, and why are there two names for one company? I don’t like that.   I like a good old-fashioned name for a bed, like “Beautyrest.” That’s a name that makes you feel nice, like the bed is actually going to make you more beautiful while you get some rest.  

But most of all, I was bothered by the visions of my brother waking up after a night on my air mattress in my living room, which had slowly flattened to a thin piece of rubber between him and the cold, hard floor. He looked neither beautiful nor rested. 

So even though the clerk was helpful and the price was comparable to the higher-end regular mattresses, there was just something a little too cockamamie about the whole thing.  

Next I’m working my way up to the more expensive mattresses.  

Meanwhile, in case you’re wondering, I’ve completely abandoned my other home decorating projects. I’m starting to kind of like the stripes on the wall from trying out all the paints, and there’s something artfully charming, I think, about the exposed plugs since the electrical work was done and not done.  

So next I’m going to the Duxiana store. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

So, Sam began bed shopping. 

One drawback to having a fully and happily employed boyfriend (okay, maybe the only drawback) is that he is busy a lot, and so Sam asked me, Stylehound that I am, to accompany her on her preliminary search for a new bed. The Bachelor would be brought in as necessary at the end of the search. 

The first place we went was Macy’s. I should have known when the elevator got stuck on the way up to the top floor that this would not go well, and it didn’t. 

While we waited for the elevator to start moving again, we decided we would turn down any salesman’s attempts to talk to us before we got a chance to just look everything over.  

As soon as we walked into the bed department, a salesman came over to us. I told myself that the fact that he bore an uncanny resemblance to Richard Nixon did not necessarily mean the beds here would be untrustworthy, and I boldly said, “We just want to look first,” and he muttered, “Sure, sure, of course,” and crept away.  

“That was easy,” Sam said. 

“See? Stick with the Stylehound. I know how to handle these guys.” 

We lay on one bed, a Sealy.  

 $1600. It was really quite comfortable, but it’s a little hard to tell, you know, when you’re lying there in your jacket and boots. Still, it felt great, but maybe that’s just because it always feels great to lie down, especially after lunch.  

As we were whispering about the quality of the mattress, Nixon appeared.   

“I just want to tell you that these beds are all on sale, about twenty percent off.”  

“Okay,” we said, and struggled to our feet.  

“What kind of mattress are you looking for?” he asked. He seemed to be wringing his hands a little bit, but maybe that was my imagination.  

“Medium,” Sam said, and then we were in it, Nixon leading us from bed to bed. We duly threw ourselves onto each one, lying there as he stood over us, telling us about the springs and coils and foam until I had no idea anymore which bed was which. 

We staggered out of there and back to the elevator, and then Sam turned to me. “Listen,” she said, “we’d better take the escalator.” 

On our way down, she ran down the mattresses, their prices and quality.  

“But you know,” she said when we reached the first floor, “there wasn’t any one of them that I Rathed.” 

“Rathing” is a term coined by Sam’s mother, one of those expert shoppers. It stands for “Really Have to Have.” Sam’s mother always said that you shouldn’t buy anything—whether it’s a sofa, or a t-shirt, or a pair of socks—unless you feel passionately about it, unless you love it so much you want to wear it out of the store, unless you Really Have to Have it. 

“Well, there are other kinds of mattresses to look at,” I said, realizing even as I was speaking the words that I was getting myself into an extended job here.  

We went through the revolving door, which spit us neatly back onto 34^th Street. 

“Plus, there was something about that salesman that just seemed a little like a crook,” Sam said.