[15] Full Size Mattress Dimensions

The double bed, which measures 137cm by 188cm in New Zealand, was once all a couple needed to slumber sweetly at night.

Doubles have become less and less popular in the last two decades, owing to a rise of bigger queens, kings, and even super king and Californian king varieties.

In New Zealand, singles and king singles are usually used by children, doubles are still available (but scarcely so), and queens at 153cm by 203cm remain standard. "Queens make up about 50 per cent of our market, but it used to be 70," says Paul Barry, owner of Wellington Beds.

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US surveys suggest queens have been out-selling doubles since 1999, and New Zealand retailers have seen a similar trend.

"We'd be lucky to have five per cent of our sales go to doubles," says Barry. "It's a size thing. Ideally, people would sleep on their own. A double is just too small for two people. People want bigger beds so they're not to tight together."

King-size beds (167cm by 203cm) and super-king beds (183cm by 203cm) continue to increase in popularity. "Kings and super kings are taking up a greater part of the market. As people want better quality beds, they also want bigger beds," Barry explains.

Our beds are also getting bigger as our bedrooms become "social spaces", prime for, say, a Netflix binge on your laptop or iPad. Though incredibly bad in terms of the accepted parameters of sleep hygiene, using your bed for more than just sleep and sex seems to be becoming a societal norm."

HISTORY OF BED SIZES

If we look back through history, bed sizes and materials have continued to evolve.

Primitive people slept on the cold, hard ground. If they were lucky, they'd have an animal hide or leaves to add some comfort, or perhaps they'd dig a hole in the ground (filling it with grass and moss) to protect themselves from the elements.

In 3400 BC, Egyptian Pharaohs discovered the comfort benefits of not sleeping on the floor, and created pallets raised off the ground. Commoners in Ancient Egypt, conversely, slept on piles of palm leaves.

Around 1580 BC, Persians had started sleeping on sewn-up goatskins filled with water – what we can now look at as the first example of the waterbed.

By the time the Romans came around, stuffed "mattresses" had been created; usually filled with hay, reeds, or feathers. It's thought this is where the term "hitting the hay" comes from.

For several centuries Arabs would sleep on stuffed cushions on the floor; a method that was adopted by Europeans during the Crusades in the 11th Century.

Stuffing mattresses with natural, comfortable fillings was then commonplace for centuries, but not until the Renaissance period (14th-17th Centuries) did beds become elaborate.

For those who could afford them, "luxury" beds (similar to those we all sleep on today) were made of pea shucks, straw, and feathers, and covered in brocade, silk, or velvet. They would have been similar in size to the modern-day "double".

Though history remains vague on sizing, the queen-sized bed appears to be invented for none other than Queen Elizabeth I herself.

Historians believe that the first king-sized bed was created in 1890, and was far larger than a modern-day king: it could fit 15 people. Today, the original sits at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

In the early 18th Century, mattresses began being stuffed with cotton and wool. By the end of that century we'd begun stitching the mattress edges and buttoning covers over them (so the stuffing couldn't be seen), and these gradually became the norm for common people.

Until the 1800s, as historian Roger Ekirch writes in his book At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, upper-class Europeans slept in separate beds because they could afford to own several beds, while lower-class families all huddled into one double bed.

Royalty and gentry excepted, it appears it was only really customary for a couple to sleep apart when one spouse was sick.

During the Industrial Revolution technology made things interesting, and the first bed coils were invented (and patented in 1865 by inventor Samuel Kettle).

Inner-sprung mattresses with upholstered bases came around in the 1930s, and foam mattresses came about in the 1950s.

When we think of the 1950s, we also have a vision of married couples sleeping in separate, single beds. It appears this was influenced by Hollywood.

The films and TV shows made during and after the World Wars were very puritanical about sex.

Owing to the industry's morality, it was seen as vulgar to show a double bed on screen because of its sexual connotations, and this likely influenced some couples' desire to sleep separately.

In the late 1950s, the bed-making industry began to look for more commercial opportunities, and put queen and king-sized beds on the market.

Initially, they were supposed to replace the double bed completely, but it remained available for several decades.

In the 1960s and 70s, society was liberalising and so too were couples' views on sleeping in the same bed once again.

With queen beds – approximately 15cm wider and 12cm longer than doubles – widely available, they became the popular choice for couples in need of a comfortable night's sleep.

Interestingly, in the UK the queen-sized bed still doesn't exist, likely because Queen Elizabeth II has been the reigning monarch since queen-size entered commercial production.

Instead, beds in the UK are available in double or king sizes, but its "king" is actually a few centimetres smaller than other nations' queens.

THE FUTURE OF BEDS

So what's next? It is possible to find Californian kings – which measure 183cm by 213cm – in New Zealand, and select few retailers stock the linens to fit them.

They were actually invented in Los Angeles in the 1960s for celebrity mansions, but if historical bed trends continue, perhaps they'll one day become the go-to for "commoners" as well.