Princess and the Pea

Man it’s been an expensive year! Planning a wedding, having to buy a new car (like 5 months earlier than we planned), our dishwasher broke, and now a new mattress. Michael is convinced that his back issues are largely in part due to the craptastic memory foam mattress we have.  After his most recent, horrible back flare-up he insisted we get a new mattress.

Our mattress was about 5 years old. He got it when I moved in with him. I had told him that his gross futon mattress that sank about 10 inches in the middle of the bed had to go. We have both regretted getting the memory foam mattress. It’s always been firmer than we liked. While I was unhappy with the added expensive that we didn’t need right now in our lives, I longed for a good night’s sleep. I suffer from insomnia as it is and the uncomfortable mattress makes me toss and turn ALL.NIGHT.LONG.

We went into this process without a ton of research. We asked different people if they liked their mattresses, or what they could recommend. A lot of people love the Sleep Number bed. I thought for sure that was what we’d end up getting because Michael likes a firmer bed and I like a soft, cloud-like bed. But when we went and tested it out, I was not impressed at all. While it’s a neat concept, I wouldn’t say it was comfortable. It felt a whole lot like an air mattress you’d take camping. (Of course the one that was $7K didn’t feel like that but…really?!) I was really disappointed.

We went to five different stores and tested out at least 25 beds. Parklane was a local Portland mattress store and while I wanted to support a local business and not a chain, and they did a lot of recycling and using green products to make the beds, it was really expensive and I didn’t *love* any of them.

One night after work we had a quick dinner at home (pork chop, steamed cauliflower with Goddess dressing and I had some baked beans on the side) before going back out to continue the search.

The never-ending search…Funny enough, the very first store we went to (Mattress World on 82nd Ave in Clackamas), and the VERY FIRST BED we tested, is the one we ended up comparing everything else to. We went back to that store and gave it another try. It was a Thursday evening and the store was empty except for us, which was nice. It wasn’t crowded and the sales guy, Andy, was super helpful and did a great job explaining different stuff without it feeling like he was pushy in his sales.

We narrowed the choices down to three (including the first mattress we tested). After hopping between them and testing them out, we eliminated one pretty quickly because it jiggled too much when one of us rolled over. The last thing we needed was to wake each other up all night long turning over!

The choices were down to the first matttress (BeautyRest Black) and an Englander, which felt like we were laying on pillows. It was comfortable and we both agreed we wouldn’t be unhappy with either mattress we ended up buying. So how do you decide? Price? The Beauty Rest was definitely more expensive, the other one was half the price (and the 4th of July sales were still going on).

In the end we went with the BeautyRest Black because it’s the one we kept going back to. And when we tossed and turned the bed barely moved at all. That’s a good sign. So the mattress was on sale and we saved a few hundred bucks because we didn’t need a boxspring AND we convinced the sales guy to throw in two pillows for free. We got two super nice pillows that are normally like $90 each. Score!

Bella was analyzing everything! We bought the bed and went home to our crappy mattress. It was going to be about a week before it would be delivered. It was going to be made to order and then shipped down from Seattle. We had a GREAT experience at Mattress World and I also liked that they have that 4 month guarantee–if we decide we don’t like the mattress they let you return it without fees and penalties and try something else.

He also told a story that was quite disturbing. Apparently it costs businesses $2k a month for Yelp to keep reviews on the website. I had no idea and it really made me dislike Yelp and question all of the reviews I see. Does that mean that if businesses choose not to pay that ridiculous fee they don’t have many reviews? Or do they suppress certain kinds of reviews to skew the results? It really made me question the validity of Yelp reviews.

So how was the new bed?

It’s definitely better than our old bed. I noticed right away it felt more comfortable, softer. I had a few days of some neck pain as I was getting used to the new bed but after that it was okay. I notice that I do not toss and turn like I used to. It’s easier to get comfortable and stay in that position. I am usually a side sleeper and the memory foam killed me. I’d wake up with horrible shoulder pain. That hasn’t happened with the new bed, so that’s a bonus. Does it feel like I am sleeping on a cloud? Not really, but it feels a million times better!