Thinking about the Tilly Upholstered Bed? I’m sharing my honest review plus fabric choice details
Our guest room was the very first room in our home to get a makeover after moving to Connecticut. One of the upgrades I made is swapping out the old headboard in the room for a new upholstered bed with sideboards and footboard. It made SUCH a difference! Today I’m sharing all the details on the Tilly upholstered bed and what you need to know in order to decide if it’s the bed for you! (post includes affiliate links; full disclosure statement is available {here})
The bed I bought is this Tilly upholstered bed (found {HERE}) and am so glad I did – it’s one of the best cheap upholstered beds out there!
Other Guest Room 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
The price was amazing – basically about ⅓ – ¼ the price of other upholstered beds I was looking at!
Fabric Options for Tilly Upholstered Bed
There are a ton of fabric options to choose from with this bed. I wanted something that was in the white/cream color family and chose the “Zuma White” fabric. It’s the perfect not-too-white yet not-too-yellow cream color. Here you can see it side by side the other closest fabric sample colors, Linen Talc and White Twill:
The 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 is one consistent color throughout the sample while the Linen Talc has some darker threads and some lighter threads in the weave. The White Twill is a much cooler white (a white that has more blue than yellow in it) than Linen Talc and Zuma White. It’s a very bright white (in my opinion, a little bit too bright for an upholstered bed).
The bed shipped for free and arrived in less than a week. How does it differ from upholstered beds that are 4 times or more the price? The only differences I’ve found are (1) the back of the headboard isn’t finished (so it’s not a good choice if you’re floating the bed in a room but doesn’t matter in a typical placement against a wall), (2) the headboard doesn’t extend all the way down to the floor (I’ll share more on that in a bit), and (3) the bed has to be assembled.
Bed Assembly
I recommend two people for assembly of the Tilly upholstered bed. The instructions that it comes with are clear and overall assembly was pretty quick and easy. It took us a little over an hour to assemble with most of that time being spent making minor adjustments to get the sideboards and footboard to line up perfectly.
Do You Need a Boxspring?
The description of the Tilly bed states that you don’t need a boxspring. However, I recommend that you DO use a boxspring with it. Without a boxspring, 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. Also several reviewers who have tried it without a boxspring state that the the bed slats aren’t supportive enough without one.
Pros & Cons of the Tilly Upholstered Bed
Overall the Tilly bed is the best looking upholstered bed I’ve seen for the price. In fact, when we moved to North Carolina, I bought the same exact bed in a king size for our primary bedroom:
Sources: Upholstered bed | Nightstands | Blush table lamps | Gray dragon pillow covers | Other bedding – no longer available | Chandelier | White drapes | Upholstered chair | Floor lamp
One of the things I love about it is that the Zuma White fabric is such a chameleon! It’s kinda white, kinda cream, kinda light beige depending upon what colors you put it next to. I have a lot of different whites in our bedroom and while the Zuma White is less of a bright white than the whites of our drapes and bedding, it still totally works:
I also like the height of the bed that feels just right to me. And shipping is free which is amazing since this is a sizable pice of furniture!
One of the cons of this bed is that the fabric isn’t a performance fabric which would be ideal, making it super easy to clean. That being said, performance fabrics are super pricey so would drive the price on this bed up substantially. And while I haven’t had any big stains in our headboard to clean, any small marks have been cleanable.
The only other con I can think of is that the headboard portion of the bed isn’t upholstered all the down close to the ground. The upholstered portion stops just an inch or so under the top of our mattress so if you have a mattress that’s on the thinner side, it’s possible you’d see a small gap between where the headboard stops and the top of your mattress start. While this design is done to keep pricing low, I actually like it this way because it makes it possible for us to access the outlets behind our bed (which we couldn’t do with the more expensive upholstered bed in our previous home).
I hope you found this post helpful – if you have any questions, ask away! If you aren’t used to buying furniture online, it might be helpful for you to check out my post about how to buy furniture with my ten best online shopping tips!
And if you want some other bed options, be sure to check out my post on the best cheap upholstered beds that has a few other affordable favorites.
