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Help me: Buy a Mattress!
treeboy11
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I really don't know where to start. Should I just go to mattress giant and find a comfy one? Is there anything I should be aware of?
treeboy11 on
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Man, our ancestors slept on piles of leaves and goatskins, and they managed to stave off bed-death long enough to reproduce. That's not, of course, to say that you should do the same - there's no reason not to take advantage of modern technological advances that provide comfort. Just don't buy into the hype that says you'll sleep like shit unless you spend $2000 on your mattress.
Personally, I use a $150 foam mattress from Ikea, and it's fantastic. It's comfortable, it's low-profile, and when I move, I can just roll it up into a big soft tube and lash some rope around it for easy transport - I lived in a sixth-floor apartment for a year, and there was just no way I could have wrestled a queen-sized boxspring and coil mattress up those twisty little stairs even if I had wanted to.
DO NOT BUY A CHEAP MATTRESS.
My wife and I decided to buy an inexpensive king size mattress and it was wonderful! For a while. Now we hate it. No amount of flipping or foam covers can make the damn thing comfortable. Once a week, I sleep on the couch to make my back feel better.
Unfortunately, I can't afford a new more expensive mattress =/
Do yourself a favor and save up for a really nice one
This sooooo much. While you don't need to spend $2,000, make sure you're dropping at least $500. Kate and her experience is an extreme exception to a rule.
It may seem comfy at first and you'll be patting yourself on all the money you saved, but in the long run it's a terrible decision. I think I spent $700 on my full set and it's amazing. When lady friends spend the night they marvel at how comfy it is.
Just gotta make sure that is all redded really hard.
That's a really extreme over exaggeration.
You're... redding the fact that I pointed out that a mattress salesman will use pseudoscience and baseless claims to try to convince the OP to spend much more money than he needs to?
Nice try, mattress industry.
Seriously, though, it has been my experience that the quality and comfort of a mattress has much more to do with its structure than its price. Innerspring mattresses are considerably more prone to issues of sagging, coil breakage, and pressure point formation simply because of the way they're built: they have many parts, and some of those parts break or wear unevenly. Higher-quality (more expensive) innerspring mattresses tend to use higher-quality parts than cheap ones, so yes, if you have your heart set on one of those, spending $150 probably would get you a lousy night's sleep.
But with a foam mattress, those physical issues are minimized, because instead of being made up of hundreds of metal springs of varying alloys, thicknesses, tensions, and quantities, lashed together in a metal frame, and covered with fabric, they're made of... foam. Sheets of foam. More expensive types of foam may have slightly different compression rates than cheaper types, but you're not going to see the same difference in quality between a cheap and an expensive foam mattress that you would in innerspring mattresses. Latex mattresses are similar, from what I've heard, but they tend to be more expensive since they're less common.
OP: I'm not going to link to it because it has full-frontal nudity about five seconds in, but do a Youtube search for "Penn & Teller - Bullshit S06E05 Sleep, Inc." (NSFW, in case that wasn't obvious). What they say should be taken with a grain of salt, of course, because they're entertainers first and educators a distant second, but they do offer an interesting look at the whole mattress and sleep aid industry.
No, I'm redding the fact that you're basically telling the OP that he can spend $150 on some piece of foam and he'll be just fine. You're throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. Pulling numbers like 95% out of thin air is kinda silly.
I've bought foam mattress toppers that cost more than your entire foam mattress. And the fact that you're using Ikea as a point of quality? I mean, I own some Ikea pieces, but I'd never look at them as really great by any means.
Ikea does have some decent mattresses, but they're quite a bit more than what you spent on your foam "mattress".
OP, expect to at about $500 for something decent in the Full range. Maybe a little less if you get lucky and find a sale. Check out close outs that places will have on "last year's models".
Rotate it once a month.
That's about all I got, go lay down on some stuf and see what you think.
I have to take my topper off in the Summer.
As for advice: We had a little money to spend and needed a new bed, so my husband and I went to a real live mattress store. I had my heart set on foam, and he just wanted to get the most comfortable thing for long term and damn the price, because he heard somewhere that people miss their spines when they're gone.
Of course the foam mattresses were the most expensive things in the store. I spent some time on one and was sold, but we kept looking anyway. Eventually the mattress guy came over and said to me "yeah, you can get that, but come over here and look at this one first. It was a Kingsdown. With springs. And I said "ew, springs". And he said something that amounted to "yeah yeah, try it anyway". I did and so did my husband. It was exactly as comfortable as the foam, and we bought it. It's probably one of the most comfortable things I've ever slept on, but still firm enough to support my back. It's the best, most useful purchase we ever made, and it was a good few hundred cheaper than the foam one. It also came with a very long guarantee.
The moral of the story, which depends largely on budget: If you have some money for this, do your research, and then go to a mattress store and try everything. Don't sell yourself on foam or springs before you've tried out all your options, because what's going to be comfortable on your back and joints is a pretty individual thing. If you don't have money to spend on this, don't have back problems, and are fairly young still, I slept on a $99 air mattress for 5 months, and then the floor for 6, and I lived through it. Kingsdowns are great, though, and I definitely recommend them.
If you do have back problems, you really need to do that research and try everything and invest in something that doesn't suck, because it will do you wonders.
edit: oh yeah, and whatever you buy, save yourself some heartache and get a nice mattress pad. It will save you time and money down the line.
I have a serta foam mattress and I've yet to have an issue with heat, with the exception of when its 110 degrees outside and then it feels hot as fuck because it is. What your saying is true as I have a few friends who have foam mattresses that will constantly complain about how hot they are in the summer, so it varies by brand.
A "Memory foam" mattress is really hard to get an idea of what its like by just laying down on it once. I mean you get the idea but it doesn't come into its own until you've slept on it for a week or so. When I first switched over to a foam mattress after replacing a beat to hell one I couldn't sleep worth a damn and I came within a inch of getting rid of the foam mattress. Then I got used to it and now its just lights out when I hit that mattress.
Take it for what its worth as I have some issues with my back and I'm one of those people who trashes in bed trying to find a comfortable spot to fall asleep in but I've been very happy with my Serta Memory Foam mattress. Its made a pretty big difference in my back and my sleep and I've recommended it to friends I got a sweet deal from Overstock (one of the rare true "deals" from that place) on it and was really happy about it. Looking back honestly the only thing I would prefer a standard spring mattress over a foam one would be for...well extracurricular activites :winky: but for sleep I'm pretty well set on a foam mattress...YMMV as some people hate foam so its one of those things that you have to take a chance on or play it safe with a regular spring mattress.
If you choose to get a foam mattress make sure you have a firm base for it. Before I switched to a platform frame I stuck a sheet of OSB under the mattress.
But the only advice like that has been said is don't cheap out on your mattress, you spend so much time on it that it isn't worth cheaping out on it.
Home Inspection and Wind Mitigation
http://www.FairWindInspections.com/
step 1: Find a mattress you really really like.
step 2: Don't buy it.
step 3: Go to a discount/factory outlet store that gets rid of brand new mattresses that have defects and pay 50%-70% less.
I have a super-nice mattress/box spring/simple frame and paid around 475$ for it including 3 pillows and 2 sets of 1200 thread count sheets/pillow cases.
The defect? One of the stitches that goes up the side of the mattress is not straight enough. The sheets were tragically made with the flaw that the packaging noted the wrong color... it was a clear package so it's not like I was shocked when I got a set of black and a set emerald green that both said "white" on the package.
They don't generally deliver. Ask someone who works there if they have a truck and want to make 20$.
They don't advertise prices and can be harder to find and the selection may not be as good as a commercial retail type place. However they still have displays set up and you can still flop around on them and make sure it's what you want.
I will never purchase a retail mattress again. I got what should have been 1000$ of stuff and did not pay 1000$.
Most any place will deliver, bring it in, and remove all the packaging. Also, mattresses aren't very heavy.
Yeah, I brought my queen box spring and all that jaz up to the 3rd floor without much difficulty by myself. If I had someone who could help me for 3 minutes it would have barely even taken effort.
What? No, just no. This is ridiculous fear mongering. Ignore this.
1. Your mattress is going to be wrapped so there wouldn't be bedbugs in it anyway.
2. Most places don't use the same truck for delivery and pick-up of old mattresses.
3. If there were bed bugs transferring from the trucks to the mattresses the entire warehouse would be infested.
The biggest issue with buying a mattress is going to be this: the industry from the ground up is designed to deny you comparative information to assist your shopping.
I am a geek and when a new mattress was needed I sought out the internet and tried to do mattress research and this is what I found: You can't.
Companies will sell the exact same mattress with different model names to different stores so you can't comparison shop. This just sucks but it is the way things are.
So lay on some mattresses, check with friends/family/internet about mattress stores in your area and hope. I would also consider it a bit like a car, do not, under any circumstances, walk into a store with the idea "Here I buy my mattress, now." When you go to a store promise yourself you will not buy until at the least the next day and then convince the sales people of this.
.......yea, right. I guess if you live in the middle of a major metro a store could afford to have two separate logistic systems that makes twice as many trips as necessary, sending twice as many people to do something that could easily be combined into a single trip. If they have the cash for that they would have to be raping their customers on price.
sure odds are in your favor but to me its not worth the risk. PLus that advice is coming from a guy who runs a mattress store from another forum i post on. it is something that never crossed my mind
Here are my experiences:
Mattress stores are bullshit.
They are set up like used car lots. The sticker on the mattress? Not the price. The amount the guy says he can knock off for you? Not the price.
The amount you get told about as you're leaving the store? . . . close to the price.
I've had the same experiences at every store that focused on selling mattresses. Comission based, high pressure, overinflated price quotes. Used Car Salesmen.
If you don't want the hassle of haggle, go to your nearest department store. They sell a ton more things than mattresses and the pricetag is exactly the price. Don't like it? Go to another store.
The employees are half-a-step above register monkeys and couldn't care less if you bought the thing or not. I've never been happier than to have been treated with apathy about my purchase.
So I'd go with a Costco, Sears, Macy's, etc.
The mattress is firm, yet soft, and never needs flipping.
That's because you got lucky and found a deal on Overstock. How much was that mattress at retail?
EDIT: And twins are pretty small. I think everyone else here has been speaking in the Full/Queen range. If the OP ever wants to have "overnight guests" I wouldn't recommend anything smaller than a full size.
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!
Just FYI, ShopSavvy is also on Android now too.
http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Accu-Gold-Memory-Foam-10-inch-Twin-size-RV-Component-Sleep-System/4178751/product.html
I have no idea how much they retail for, but this is always available on Overstock.
http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Accu-Gold-Memory-Foam-10-inch-Queen-size-RV-Component-Mattress-Sleep-System/4178766/product.html
This is the queen size version. I'd recommend this brand for sure.
These are the key things to keep in mind - it's EXACTLY like buying a car, and they make it as hard as possible to comparison shop.
Now, these are both a plus and a minus - it's a minus, in that they can claim "we'll beat anyone's price!" because NO OTHER STORE has the exact same model. It, however, is a plus because if you actually do the research and come into a mattress store with online prices for what is basically the exact same mattress, the stores will very often price match them (because of the first part - they'd rather sell you an extremely discounted price match to online store mattress than no mattress)
Also, I completely agree that a good mattress is worth its weight in gold - the difference in going from an Ikea mattress (which isn't really that cheap new) to a real mattress is unbelievable, and you'll go to bed every night thanking various deities that you spent a couple hundred extra dollars. I'm not saying you won't get ripped off going up from the entry level to some fancy thing with double pillowtops and bells on the side, but to suggest that there's no difference between the Ikea/futon-level and a real mattress boggles my mind
Like their furniture though, the cheaper stuff doesn't hold up for terribly long.
(Also, I own several pieces of Ikea furniture) :P