Tilly Upholstered Bed Review

Thinking about buying the Tilly Upholstered Bed? After having this bed for years, I’m sharing my honest review including pros and cons, fabric choice options, and how it compares to similar beds!

As part of our Connecticut guest bedroom remodel about eight years ago, I wanted to upgrade our basic headboard to a fully upholstered bed. After doing a ton of shopping to find the best combination of style and price, I ended up choosing the Tilly upholstered bed. And WOW, it made such a huge difference in the look and feel of our space! Fast forward six years, and I was so happy with the Tilly bed that I chose the same exact one for the primary bedroom in our current home.

Today I’m sharing all of the details on the Tilly upholstered bed to help you decide whether it’s the right bed for you! Let’s start with a few pics… (post includes commissionable links; for more information, see my disclosure statement {here})

The Style of the Tilly Upholstered Bed

In my search for a fully upholstered bed, the Tilly bed (found {HERE}) was one of the most affordable beds I found that didn’t look at all cheap. It has a simple but classically beautiful style with a tall headboard that has curved “wings” on each side. The headboard, sideboards, and footboard are all fully upholstered. Here’s what it looked like in the queen size in the guest room of our previous home:

Other Sources: Mirror over Bed  |  Quilt (flax color)  |   White and beige check duvet (similar) | 24″ Embroidered Medallion Pillow covers | 20″ White Tassel End Pillow Cover (similar) |  White Bedside Lamps (similar) |  Round Wood Beaded Tray  |  Clock

and here’s what it looks like in the king size in the primary bedroom of our current home:

Other Sources: Nightstands  |  Blush table lamps  |  Gray dragon pillow covers  |  Chandelier  |  White drapes | Bedding is no longer available

Tilly Bed Pros & Cons

Ready to know all about the Tilly bed pros and cons? Let’s start with what I love about the Tilly upholstered bed…

Price

First of all, the price was a major factor in my decision to buy it. Fully upholstered beds are quite a bit more expensive than a simple headboard, and while the Tilly bed certainly isn’t cheap, it’s about ⅓ the price of some of the other upholstered beds I considered. Also, the Tilly bed ships for free, which is a HUGE plus because most upholstered beds cost $200-$300+ for delivery.

While the price of the Tilly bed varies depending upon sales and promotions, you can typically get it on sale in the king size for under $1000 with free shipping. In comparison, Pottery Barn’s Harper bed (which has a similar look with the tall headboard option) is typically between $1900-$2700 in the king size, depending upon which fabric you choose. The current shipping price for the Harper bed is $379 for a total of $2279-$3079. So overall, the Tilly bed is between ⅓ – ½ the price of the similar Harper bed.

Shipping

In addition to shipping for free, Wayfair states that the Tilly bed takes about 2-3 weeks for delivery with all fabric choices (mine actually took only a week). In comparison, the Harper bed has one fabric choice that has a 1-3 week delivery time. But other Harper bed fabrics take from 6+ weeks to 12+ weeks for delivery, depending on which fabric you choose.

Headboard Height

Headboard height is important to me when choosing a bed. It’s silly to pay a lot for a bed with a pretty headboard when you can hardly see any of it once decorative pillows are on the bed. For example, while I love the look of {this classic upholstered bed} from the side view,

there’s a reason why they show it with the decorative pillows slumped down instead of standing up. When looking at it from the front, you can hardly see any of the headboard because it’s only 35″ high:

If you stood your decorative pillows up like I do, it would cover the headboard completely.

For beds with both a box spring and mattress, I prefer an absolute minimum headboard height of 50″. {This beadboard bed} in our guest room is 52″ high and I wouldn’t want to go much lower than that:

Sources: Round mirror   | Pinch pleat curtains in snow white  |  Embroidered stripe pillow shams  |  Embroidered stripe duvet cover  |  Blue and white block print pillows (similar)  |  White tassel pillow  |  Cane bench  |  Nightstands  |   White Lamps (similar)

The headboard height of the Tilly bed is 55″. It’s tall enough that there are still several inches of upholstery visible above the top of my 26″ pillow shams:

Now let’s talk about the cons of the Tilly upholstered bed…

Assembly

The Tilly bed arrives at your home in two boxes and requires assembly. In comparison, more expensive upholstered beds like the Harper Bed from Pottery Barn often offer white glove delivery that includes assembly. While you could assemble the Tilly bed yourself, it’s much easier with two people. The instructions that it comes with are clear, and overall assembly was pretty quick and easy. It took two of us a little over an hour to assemble the bed, with most of that time being spent making minor adjustments to get the sideboards and footboard to line up perfectly.

Wayfair does have the option of paying an extra $79.99 for someone to come to your house and assemble the Tilly bed for you, but I’ve never tried that, so I don’t have experience to share. You could also hire someone on Task Rabbit if you prefer not to assemble it yourself.

Headboard Construction

One difference between the Tilly upholstered bed and more expensive upholstered beds is that the headboard doesn’t extend all of the way down to the floor like it does with more expensive beds. In this pic where I pulled our mattress away from the headboard, you can see where the headboard ends about 24″ up from the floor:

It’s done this way to keep pricing low. Unless the top of your mattress is lower than where the upholstered bed ends, you won’t be able to tell (more on this in a bit!). And I actually prefer it this way in our bedroom because our outlets are behind the bed and having that opening allows us to access them more easily.

Lack of Performance Fabric Options

Another con of the Tilly bed is that there aren’t any performance fabric options. I love performance fabrics like Sunbrella, Crypton, and Perennials because they’re stain-resistant, don’t fade, and are easily cleanable. Liquids (even wine!) just bead up on top of them and are easily cleaned off:

However, performance fabrics are quite expensive, and the reason they aren’t offered is probably because they would drive the price of the Tilly bed up substantially.

While I haven’t had any big stains on our bed, I’ve been able to easily clean small marks off using a small amount of {this Folex} (my favorite carpet & upholstery cleaner!) on a damp microfiber cloth.

Now that we’ve gone over the pros and cons, let’s talk about fabric choices for the Tilly bed…

Tilly Bed Fabric Choices

Out of the 30+ available fabric options, I chose the Zuma White textured linen fabric for both of our Tilly beds. I love that the Zuma White fabric is such a chameleon! It’s kind of white, kind of cream, kind of light beige, depending on what colors you put next to it. I have a lot of different whites in our bedroom, including white walls, nightstands, and drapes, and the Zuma White fabric color blends well with all of them:

Other fabric options I considered are Classic Talc Linen (which was previously called Linen Talc) and White Twill. Here’s how they compare:

Comparing Classic Talc Linen vs. Zuma White, Linen Talc is more of a light beige, while Zuma White is more of a creamy white. Another difference is that the Zuma White fabric sample has one consistent color throughout the sample, while the Linen Talc has some darker and lighter threads in the weave.

White Twill is a much cooler white (a white that has more blue than yellow in it) than both Linen Talc and Zuma White. It’s a very bright white (in my opinion, a little bit brighter than I’d prefer for an upholstered bed).

Do You Need a Box Spring?

Yes, you DO need to use a box spring with the Tilly bed, as the bed slats aren’t supportive enough for the mattress without one. Also, without a box spring, the bed would be quite low and you’d see a gap between the top of your mattress and the bottom of the upholstered portion of the headboard.

I have a 9″ box spring on my Tilly bed because that’s the size that I already owned. It works just fine, but if I were to buy a new one for this bed, I would choose a 7″ box spring (I recommend {this box spring}). Why a 7″ box spring? Because the 9″ box spring is about 2″ higher than the sides of the upholstered bed:

I covered our boxspring with a white fitted sheet so that it blends well with the mattress, but I’d prefer not having the box spring show at all.

What about using a box spring that’s 4-5″ high? Unless you have an extremely thick mattress, I don’t recommend it and here’s why. With my 9″ box spring, the top of my mattress is several inches higher than the bottom of the headboard, so you can’t tell that the headboard fabric doesn’t go all the way to the floor:

With a 4-5″ box spring, the top of my mattress would be lower than the bottom of the headboard, which would leave an unsightly gap. For reference, I have a 14″ high mattress.

Does the Tilly Bed Work With an Adjustable Bed Frame?

Wayfair states that they do “not recommend adjustable bases with any wing-backed headboard as the movement can cause friction between the mattress and wings and potentially damage the fabric and the motor.” However, over 70 reviewers left comments that this bed worked with their adjustable bed frame, while there are only a handful of reviews that mention it didn’t work for them.

One reviewer states, “This also fit with our adjustable frame that we already had. We just skipped the steps to add the wood supports and our king adjustable frame fit right inside the side rails of this bed. Another states, “My Sleep Number adjustable bed is NO problem with this frame! It doesn’t rub on it and it adjusts perfectly even though the description said not to use with an adjustable bed.” A third states, “We have an adjustable bed and removed the center slats and everything fits perfectly.”

So overall, it seems like there’s a high probability of the Tilly bed working with your adjustable bed frame, but it’s not recommended by Wayfair and there have been a handful of people who have had issues with it.

Tilly vs. Hanson Bed

If you’re considering the Tilly upholstered bed, you might also be considering {this Hanson bed}:

It’s made by the same manufacturer and is VERY similar to the Tilly bed. The dimensions are identical, other than the Hanson bed being 1″ taller. The main difference is that the “wings” on either side of the headboard are curved with the Tilly bed and straight with the Hanson bed:

So I’d say that the Tilly bed is a more classic style, while the Hanson has a slightly more modern vibe. I love both!

Other Beds Like the Tilly Bed

If you want a higher-end version of the Tilly bed with the option of a performance fabric, consider Pottery Barn’s Harper bed {here} in the nontufted version. I like that it has two headboard height options (51″ and 65″).

If you’re looking for a bed that you can use without a box spring, check out the Augusta upholstered bed {here} that has a curvier look: