Louisa Pearson: ‘If bed-quality is a barometer of success, I clearly have a long way to go’

I’ve bought more houses than beds. This isn’t something I’ve thought much about before, but as we snooze our way into National Bed Month (www.sleepcouncil.org.uk) perhaps it’s time to investigate whether there is such a thing as a green bed.

My two cheap pine beds (one for me, one for guests) were purchased on a budget as a first-time homeowner and I’ve yet to upgrade. If bed-quality is a barometer of success, I clearly have a long way to go. Having worked backwards through my sub-standard 20s and 30s, I put the age of the beds, and mattresses, at 12 years old. I turn the mattresses regularly, I promise.

According to the Sleep Council, you should change your mattress every seven years. As the Sleep Council represents the interests of bed manufacturers and retailers, I am choosing to take this recommendation with a pinch of salt, but am now thinking about replacing mine. As far as wooden frames are concerned, finding an eco-friendly one is easy. All you need to do is look for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) logo and this guarantees the timber comes from sustainable sources. If you want a bed made out of Scottish-grown wood, try the Scottish Furniture Makers Association (www.scottishfurnituremakers.co.uk) or Craft Scotland (www.craftscotland.org).

I was sceptical that I’d find an eco-friendly divan bed, but then I stumbled across a company called Abaca (www.abacaorganic.co.uk). This is green bed heaven, and the company is the brainchild of Rhiannon Rowley, a lady who had worked in the mattress industry for 15 years and became concerned about the chemicals used to grow or treat the raw materials. Let’s not forget that synthetic ingredients in mattresses take rather a long while to rot in landfill. Rowley turned instead to organic fabrics, made without a pesticide, herbicide or fungicide in sight and set about designing a range of organic beds and mattresses. The Cambria divan features traditional horsehair and organic wool upholstery. You can get a custom-made headboard covered with organic fabric in a colour of your choosing. Of course you can. This is the world I’ll live in when I win the lottery. To be fair, at £1,295 for the king-size version, it’s a reasonable price for an angelic bed.

Abaca’s mattresses make good use of materials such as horsehair, organic cotton, wool and natural latex. One of the main reasons that mainstream mattresses get treated with chemicals is to make them fireproof. Abaca and other organic mattress suppliers get around this and meet safety standards by using wool, which is naturally fire-retardant. There are other organic mattress producers out there, including Natural Mat (www.naturalmat.co.uk), whose offerings include the budget-conscious double pocket spring, made using organic wool and recycled denim.

I eventually found an eco-friendly guest bed made by a company called Ecofurn (www.ecofurn.co.uk), which is FSC-certified and makes donations to Tree Aid. Will I be splashing out on organic mattresses for the guests? Not without going bankrupt. Anyway, the stockists are not nearby, which makes it hard to follow the SC’s buying advice – “wear comfortable clothing and lie on the bed for quite a long time”. And the sales assistant might start to worry when you slip into your PJs.