Image: Yes, we'd all love to purchase a new mattress to float away on at the drop of a hat, but they're so dang expensive it's not always possible. The good news is, if you have a semi-decent mattress and box spring, you can make some small investments and tweaks to boost your bed's level of fluffy comfort. A photo posted by Fruition Skin Therapy (@fruitionskintherapy) on Jan 7, 2017 at 8:48pm PST Even if you have a pillow-top, don't just throw a single foam pad on over the mattress and expect your bed to dish up the best sleeping experience ever. For a luxurious and super-comfortable bed, you need to layer on the extras and add a few other goodies to create the perfect combination for you. More: Things to consider when buying a new bed Check out a memory foam mattress pad, for instance. They come in various sizes, but we suggest going for one that's 1-1/2 to 2 inches thick. You get the benefit of amazing cushioning, but the pad isn't so big that you don't have room for other types of padding.
A photo posted by Beta Cat (@betabetacat) on Dec 31, 2016 at 8:01am PST Memory foam is a great start, but next you need to double down with an eggcrate mattress pad. Yeah, they look a little crazy, but they're also amazingly comfortable. Get one big enough to cover the entire top surface of your bed and position it near the top layers of extras (on top of your memory foam, for instance), just beneath a thinner topper that's directly under your fitted sheet. If you aren't allergic to feather products, down bedding can be a gorgeously fluffy addition to your bed. Look for down pillows, mattress toppers and comforters. But quality matters here, folks — if you buy a cheap down comforter or pillow, you're going to be constantly needled to death with the prickly ends of the feathers poking through the cloth barrier. A photo posted by Cristina Dumitrache (@qrstin) on Jan 8, 2017 at 3:28am PST Whether you are allergic, don't like to buy animal products or just don't feel like dishing out the dough for down, there are synthetic substitutes/down alternatives for feather bedding.
More: DIY wooden headboard makes your bedroom instantly farmer-chic If you're looking for a good bang for your buck, the Chezmoi Collection goose down alternative comforter is a steal at $55 at Sears, and you can't beat the Natural Comfort super-warm and cozy down alternative comforter at $42 on Amazon. A photo posted by @sleep.whale.pillows on Jan 8, 2017 at 7:58am PST Speaking of comforters, it's important to pay attention to seasons and the climate you live in while shopping for one. The Natural Comfort down alternative mentioned above is great for winter, but for summer you'll want to seek out something a little lighter. There's also a whole category of all-season comforters to keep on hand to get your body temperature just right. Comforters also come in a variety of weights — so if you are claustrophobic or are soothed by a substantial heavy covering while sleeping, weight is definitely something you'll want to take into consideration. Originally published August 2009.
Next up: Get great sheetsA few things to consider about memory foam... How thick is the mattress you're using? If the entire mattress is memory foam (>6" thick), you might consider replacing it with a standard mattress, and then topping it with a 3-4" high density memory foam topper.If you're already doing this (standard mattress with memory foam topper), I'll ask you how thick the topper is, and what pound-density it has... There are a number of different measurements to consider, some of which can induce back/neck pain. I advocate 4-lb density or higher.//2012/05/03/m...While it is true that it is easier to make a mattress softer with a topper than firmer, it is possible to make a mattress firmer with the right topper. In fact we have had several customers buy for this reason. We get this a lot from people with memory foam mattresses. A firm piece of latex foam will provide a firmer surface and will also better disperse the weight on the memory foam so you will sink less in any one spot.
Memory foam is also very reactive to body heat. Placing a latex foam barrier will keep the memory foam cooler and thus firmer. When you do this you want to get at least a 2" but preferably a 3" mattress topper. It will also be more effective with a very firm piece of latex foam. We sell extra firm (44 ILD) natural latex mattress toppers which work great for this purpose. - Google+Yes , there is a way to get a memory foam mattress that will help with your back pain. It's the m7 bed by Sleep Number. It's the only one on the market that you can adjust the firmness and comfort level. It also has cool gel technology to keep you from getting too hot. The last time I bought a mattress for myself was about 11 years ago. I bought a fairly new full-sized one off a coworker. Four moves and a decade later, we’ve decided it’s time to replace it with an adult (and sometimes an extra toddler)-sized bed. When we started looking, I was shocked at the prices. $3000 for a mattress? What the heck are these things made of?
Knowing very little, we went shopping for a mattress and other things on a Saturday morning. The first place, we stopped, Sleepy’s, seemed nice enough. We laid on a few and honed in on the one that we both felt most comfortable in. Meanwhile, Audrey discovered the fun of letting herself fall backwards onto mattresses and did it all over the store. She was giggling and the whole store couldn’t help but look and smile at her. Unfortunately, we soon stopped smiling. When we found something we liked, the seemingly helpful salesman started to get more aggressive. He asked how much we were looking at paying and I made up a number on the spot, something way below the listed price on the bed. The said he would “talk with his manager” and see if he could get us that price. Then he started asking us if we could commit and have it delivered tomorrow. Anne had walked outside to give Audrey a break by that point, so I said I had to go out and talk with her about it. We talked about it for a bit, then decided we didn’t like the high-pressure sales pitch, so we got ready to leave.
I had the car started up when the salesman came out and approached the car window. He then said that he had “talked to his manager” and he could give us the price we wanted AND a free “platinum package”. I said we would talk about it and let him know. We again decided this was sketchy, but to make good on my promise, I went in and gave him my phone number and left. Later that day we went to Jordan’s Furniture, generally known to be a reputable place with reasonable places. The salespeople there were nice and NOT high-pressure. Prices were generally lower, but strangely, we couldn’t find the mattress we found at Sleepy’s. They had Sertas, but not the one we liked. Being indecisive, we left with a couple new names of ones we liked. Later, we went to Mattress Discounters. The woman there was not pushy and told us about the BBB complaints that Sleepy’s (a 700-store chain) had gotten. We decided to think some more and head home. At home, I did some research online and I found something strange – I couldn’t find much of anything on the mattresses we saw that we liked.
I found some mattresses, many of the same brand, but not the same models. I later came to find out that this was completely intentional. The mattress industry is one big scam. There is no way to make an objective decision on a mattress using actual facts. Here’s a few things that the mattress industry does to get you: 1. They mark up their prices 100% to 200%!! No wonder the first guy was able to get his “manager” to give me such a steep discount. They were probably still going to make hundreds of dollars of profits on it. 2. They give the same mattresses different names in different stores or they set up exclusivity agreements by mattress line in certain stores. This makes it impossible to comparison shop because… 3. They make it really had to get actual facts about the mattresses. Stuff like coil counts, materials, overall construction are shrouded in secrecy. But that doesn’t really matter because… 4. There’s no objective measure of mattress quality.
Consumer Reports won’t rate them because they can’t get the data and there’s no testing that actually says higher coil counts are better or the number of wires in the coils makes a difference in any way. You’re left to deciding how much you believe the marketing. Is a pillow top made of alpaca hair any better than one made of cotton? Your guess is as good as mine. 5. There’s very little online reviews of mattresses, probably because the model names are so fractured. The ones I did find looked more like content-free sites designed to attract referral credits. With some more research, I found out that it was somewhat possible to compare mattresses models from different places. It turns out that they really only make one hardness variation in each line. So you can assume that a Plush Firm mattress in the “Classic” line, is the same as another Plush Firm in the Classic line, even if they have different names. was very helpful in figuring this out. We were able to understand which mattresses we saw and how they related to each other.
For example, the mattress we liked at Jordan’s was a product line better than the one we saw at Mattress Discounters, even though they came out to the same price! Clearly Jordan’s had the better deal, but US-Mattress had an even better deal. So I did something I never thought I could do, buy a mattress over the internet. I’m pretty sure it’s the same one we saw in the store and the free delivery and frame were a good deal. I’m sure that even if I’m getting it at half the price I saw it listed at elsewhere, they’re still making a decent profit on it. Anne and I agree that buying a mattress is worse than buying a car. While both have sketchy salespeople, when you buy a car, you can compare them on MPG, size, features, etc. Multiple dealers have the same models so you can compare prices and make an informed decision based on their invoice prices. There’s none of that when buying a mattress. Our mattress should arrive in a few weeks. Hopefully we’ll just find it comfortable enough to have to avoid going through buying a mattress again for at least another 11 years.