Come with me on a trip to Saturn (JayBe Saturn Bed)

Member Name: george_lazenby

Product:	JayBe Saturn Bed
Date:	14/06/01 (596 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very attractive bed, Very comfy mattress, Very easy to assemble

Disadvantages: You may need to be an exciting yuppie to live up to the brochure pictures

Putting a bedstead in your bedroom automatically changes the character of the space. The catalogues from bedstead companies do not have the same feel as other ones, frequently featuring go-getting yuppie couples having exciting lives on their bedsteads, or placing the bed in a moody interior. My favourite, Cannock Beds, positioned their products on empty beaches, intended to look all dramatic and turning out not a little silly.

We chose JayBe, a Yorkshire based company, as they had a good range of attractive bedsteads with comfortable looking mattresses. In particular, we decided on the Saturn bed. For the purposes of clarity, I will split the subject into three sections: the bed, buying, and putting it together.

1) The Bed

The Saturn is a matt steel bedstead. The base is more or less hidden beneath the mattress so what you see is the head and footboards. The headboard is higher, and consists of a wide semi-circular metal bar, with parallel curved bars beneath it, which look like the rings of Saturn if you're so inclined. The footboard is smaller, but the same shape. It’s very simple, but incredibly bold and impressive when it has been put together. The bars are smooth and quite warm – although a metal bedstead may sound slightly severe, it looks great.

You have the choice of several grades of mattress, and get the lowest rated one free with the base, but we chose the 4 star one which is the more expensive. It’s medium, and you can get firm if you are of the hairshirt persuasion. Although I have been sleeping on a series of dreadful rented-house beds for years and so have low expectations, I haven’t slept as well as I have since getting this bed for a very long time.

2) Buying

JayBe have a decent website (www.jaybe.com). but they publish a catalogue and I’d send off for this if I were you as you can browse the products far better by studying the pictures, or even stand in the bed
room trying to imagine what various beds would look like (if, like my partner, you are bit mad). The phone number is 01924 517820. They will also send you a list of local stockists. This is done on the basis on postcode – the first list we got was useless as we live in South Manchester but have an ‘M’ postcode, whereas we would really want shops in the ‘SK’ and ‘WA’ postcodes, but JayBe sent us new lists.

We went to Bed Options in Stockport (phone: 0161 480 1932), who were very helpful and I’d recommend them if you are in the North West. I wouldn’t actually buy a bed direct from JayBe or from a big store without visiting smaller ones like Bed Options who may well be competing by offering discounts – we paid £478 for our bed and mattress, which was less than we were expecting.

It took about 5 weeks from ordering the bed to it being delivered to the store, and generally I was told it takes 4 – 6 weeks for a bed to come in. The bed is self-assembly, but not challenging at all to put together (see below).

3) Assembling

The bed arrived in three bits – mattress, with the head and footboards in a big box and the base in a long one. Essentially, you have six pieces to make up the base – the four sides, and two central beams which slot down the middle. Into this frame, you place 24 beech 'laths' or slats. The ends are protected by plastic feet which you have to push onto the slats, and then you place a row of 12 slats into each half of the base. There are slots ready for this, but it’s a bit frustrating – you get one slat in place, shift things around for the next one, and the slat you’ve just positioned falls out again. But in the end, you get the hang of it.

Working single-handed, it took me 20 minutes to assemble the base. It’s only actually held together by four screws, one in each corner, but the manager of the b
ed shop apparently demonstrates its rigidity by jumping up and down on it. I have as yet resisted this temptation, but I can believe it. The bed feels very firm.

After you’ve made the base, there are four little feet which slot into corresponding holes on the head and footboards – it literally takes two minutes to lift up the base, drop the little feet into the holes, and your bed is suddenly and gloriously assembled.

Some of the other JayBe beds mix metal and wood designs, and they vary from in styles and feel. It just depends on what kind of bedroom you want to create - as long as you have their decent mattress, you'll sleep well no matter how outlandish the design.

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