They make it right! Why wait any longer?
too busy to make beds, looking for durability, interested in comfort, not rich, systematic researcher, Mr. Fix-it, picking up after pets
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| Cons |
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AUG
20
2008
Last winter my wife and I got mad at our old innerspring and decided to finally get a new mattress. We went to a store where we had seen foam mattresses at on-sale prices. We found new management and new prices and new purchasing rules- You couldn't buy just the mattress only and get the warranty; you had to buy the mattress and foundation as a set. I have been in sales for 30 years and I recognize the old McDonald's line: "Would you like fries with your burger?" You know why? Most of their profit is in the fries. Nowadays the mattress has the foam and/or springs and ticking etc. (all the costs), and the springs (now they are called a foundation) don't have any actual springs, just cheap wood packing and a thin cardboard layer on top under the pretty fabric. The store did have a deluxe foam pillow top mattress set but it was about $2500. Nada. I work for a living and have to earn my money, and I want to hang on to it as much as I can.
I have traveled a lot and slept in both expensive hotels and truck stops. Usually hotel mattresses are extra firm because it is "healthier", but really because they are cheaper to build and buy- fewer, stiffer springs. Nowadays the nicer hotels have soft pillow top mattresses. They are just soft pillows on top of hard mattresses. I wanted something better for sleeping on at home.
I used to work as a product designer for a company that marketed mattresses. I have slept on Select Comfort style mattresses; they made noise in the night while inflating for firmer pressure. They developed air chamber "tube lumps" after a time from the foam and padding on top getting worn and flat. In spite of this, and hoping they had improved over time, my wife and I talked about getting a new Select Comfort. That is until we found out the cost. 'Nuff said.
We were stumped. We refused the idea of another inner spring. I went to the web and typed in "mattresses" or something. i stumbled onto the Bedinabox site. Wow! They had helpful information, including some very specific data on their foam and their construction and... they simply talked as a person does who has confidence in their product and who has integrity. The product description was thorough and complete. I normally raise a jaundiced eye to mailorder style buying but I found such thorough information I felt comfortable on their site. And their pricing was seriously way too good to be true. My wife and I talked for a few minutes and we made what was to us an impulse purchase decision. I ordered it. Our only decision was whether we should spend the extra cash for the down top. We did. It also came with a special protective cover to keep tiny critter things out of the foam. No extra charge.
A very short time later we had this box on our front porch. I tried to drag it into the house and instantly felt sorry for the UPS man. :o) Together my wife and I somehow got it into the bedroom. We must have made quite the spectacle trying to manhandle that box through the door and down the hall. We laughed while we were dragging it, and we were glad there were no kids there taking pictures of us.
The box opening itself was a project best considered as an event. if we ever do this again (as in another one for the other bedroom) we will get out the bubbly and cheese and crackers and we will toast each other as we open the carton, rather like christening a ship as it slides down into the water.
Next came cutting off the plastic covering that contained the highly compressed mattress. No, you can't slide it out of the bag. You cut the bag off the mattress bundle. If this doesn't make sense to you as you read this, think of a 100 pound Pillsbury doughboy in your bedroom. You know how you crack the cylinder on the kitchen counter top and the spiral cut cylinder splits and the dough pops out into freedom... multiply this into a king size doughboy compressed in layers of plastic sitting on your bed. You get a pair of scissors and carefully cut down along the side of the bundle. So we got the scissors and we cut. Suddenly, Voila! Our mattress was free. We unfolded it across the bed- more like flopping it out across the bed (You will put it on the bed BEFORE you cut it open won't you?) and it expanded over the next few minutes until it was- well, big.
We stood there examining our new treasure. It was rather unassuming in appearance. It wasn't covered in shiny, satiny damask ticking, and it didn't have a puffy pillow top making it look like it ate way too much Thanksgiving dinner. It was covered in a flannel style cover that was adequate for its needs. The mattress felt warm and cozy to me, and it had a nice kind of squareness to it. It seemed to say to me, "Here I am; lets go to work." After all, a mattress lives its life out of sight anyway; why does it need to be all jazzed up like it's going out on the town for the night? I think we should leave the satiny material for the pajamas.
It did have a new-foam aroma that was pleasant to our senses (I think a new Bedinabox smells much nicer than any new car smell). I can attest to the fact that the new mattress smell is not harmful, and won't make you sick as some folks might fret about. One of life's pleasures is that lots of things we buy smell new. Anyway it goes away in a couple of days or so.
We slept on it less than half an hour later. Boy were we happy. It was warm and soft and cozy. I slept so well my wife said we should have gotten it a year earlier. That was last winter. Now it is August and we have slept on it for the better part of a year. We love it more now than when we took the plunge and bought it.
Some details:
We bought a king size mattress.
Somewhere around the $600 area. (vs. $2500?). Including freight.
We got the extra cost down filled layer on top. That was our only disappointment. It was a bit on the thin side. We weren't disappointed we got the down layer; we were just disappointed that it wasn't a little thicker.
We are in our mid 60s. I have chronic back pain and my right shoulder hurts constantly. My wife hurts in similar fashion including her legs. We are grateful for the comfort our mattress gives us at night when we lie down to rest. We really rest.
I just flew back to our home in Indiana from a trip to Tucson AZ where I stayed in a Hilton hotel. I ate in very nice restaurants (I'll have mine medium rare thank you...) Before my trip was over I was homesick for my wife's home cooking and I was even more homesick for my own mattress. When I got home I fell asleep a happy guy. This mattress has that perfect feeling of so soft and welcoming without being either saggy or hard. To this day I find specific pleasure in the simple act of going to bed, because of how nice the mattress feels.
- I calmly feel that there is no better quality of sleep than a Bedinabox mattress.
- I feel you can spend a ton more money on a mattress, and there are plenty of people glad to relieve you of it, but you won't impress anyone, and you won't make your sleep any better.
- I feel that the folks at Bedinabox have done their homework thoroughly, and have taken care of every detail of making me smile during and after my purchase. They are very genuine in their work.
- I feel this is the wisest value choice a person can make in bedding. By the way, they didn't make me buy a new foundation either. My old one will outlive me, because it is just a wooden frame covered in cardboard and pretty cloth, and it is just as good a foundation as the sidewalk out in front of my house, and will last just as long. It is firm and it is flat. That's all it is supposed to be. That wonderful big thick soft mattress is what I sleep on. And it comes with a big wonderful warranty too, all by itself.
- Finally, I feel Bedinabox deserves our business.
Last edited on Aug 28, 2008
Bedinabox.com Memory Foam Mattress is recommended by SleepyDoug
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