Sure, I get that. I was just wondering whether the extra space is worth having to deal with a less solid professional finishing, where esthetics are less of a concern than support of your body. Mattresses are pretty important for your sleep and therefore your physical and mental health. I am not trying to have a discussion about how you spend your time though, I am sorry if it came across that way.
Hey no problem sorry if my response came off as if I thought you were attacking me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that despite the lack of professional finish around the edges, this bed is more supportive of my body than any I've been on. To describe it in more detail it's like lying on a firm surface that conforms to your body.
Or you can do both. Sure, the mattress might only marginally increase your quality of sleep, but if the price exceeds the usefulness you get out of it, I'm not sure what the issue is. We spend a third of our time sleeping, after all. Might as well make the most of it.
He was remarking that a box spring is there to provide certain things and that using another mattress instead of a box spring might not provide those benefits.
> So I did some research. It turns out that the mattress industry is a racket. The markups are ludicrous; almost every mattress on the market costs, at most, a few hundred dollars to make.
Isn't this just a result of economies of scale?
Everything becomes cheap, so if you try to buy something expensive you don't necessarily get higher quality. Most likely you'll get ripped off, OR buy something artisanal which means lower consistency (maybe also quality).
That said: the psychology of it is probably that you sleep better in an expensive bed -- even if the only difference is the cost :)
I apologize I wasn't more clear. I don't mean to come across as judgemental of Ikea. I haven't personally slept on one before other than just testing them out in the show room, but we do have quite a few customers who have replaced their Ikea bed with ours who have shared their feedback.
Why is it that more expensive mattresses = better sleep?
My experience is that it's not about the cost of an individual chair, or mattress, or desk, or whatever. It's about the cost of the process. The ideal mattress for you, today, might only cost a few hundred bucks, but you may have to put half a dozen of those cheap mattresses to the test to find it. And then your needs might change, because people grow older, and you'll need a different cheap mattress.
Your needs are going to change from day to day or from year to year. So what you want from furniture that's built to last is: Adjustability (you can change the height, the tension, or the angle without sacrificing structural soundness or necessary rigidity) and/or flexibility (the furniture is suitable for a wide range of postures and uses; a classic example is memory foam, which slowly adjusts itself to you). Not to mention: Portability and resale value, because you'll be auditioning a lot of stuff.
Consider desks, for example. At any given moment in my life, including this one, I could take my computer desk and replace it with a strategically stacked pile of cheap cardboard boxes. And, indeed, when I get a crazy new idea for a room arrangement (standing desks!) I tend to prototype it with cardboard boxes. But: The cardboard boxes are risky; they tend to fall apart over time, or fail very suddenly at moments of high stress. They also have poor structural characteristics; typing on a platform built out of cardboard, for example, can be quite unsatisfying, because it is squishy. And most importantly, the cardboard boxes don't adjust well at all. To change the height or position of my monitor or keyboard I have to find other boxes, or take everything apart and restack. Ergonomics is a game of inches. The ability to easily adjust something by an inch one way or the other is very valuable, and you are going to pay for that, either by buying something adjustable, or by auditioning two or three versions of everything, or by spending a lot of time jury-rigging things.
Perhaps I've been corrupted by the mattress salesman talking points, but it seems sensible to optimise spending money by the time spent doing certain activities.
For me that means that spending on a comfortable work area - desk, chair, monitors, keyboards - comes first. Then maybe sleeping areas. I have avoided upgrading the bedroom only because of the confusion of understanding what is good value for money so far, as there are no returns or free trials of mattresses here.
In comparison, most people way overspend on their cars, which they might use only one hour per day.
I can sleep on anything and be comfortable. A mattress salesman even told me that someone who has my body type doesn't need to spend big on a mattress if they're comfortable with a cheaper one. But there are things I put good money into that others wouldn't. Bloviating about what "everyone" needs or should do is pointless and shows a lack of understanding that people have different values.
Yes, it is. The major mattress stores each have their own custom SKUs to defeat comparison.
> You can go to a mattress store and lay on a handful of mattresses and figure out pretty quickly what you like
To some extent, but there's a wear-in period on a new mattress. It takes my body a few days to a few weeks to get used to any new mattress; trying to figure out how that's going to go from a few minutes in a store isn't super effective.
> I don't really understand why someone would buy one of their mattresses that you can't test out at a store
As someone who bought a mattress online:
1. You don't have to go to a store, which makes it much more convenient to buy.
2. If you don't like it, you can return it for a full refund, so there's no possibility of wasting money on a mattress you don't like.
I highly doubt that the extra surface area is worth the poor quality an most likely comfort of the improvised mattress. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t buy into all expensive mattresses being better than cheap ones, however, crappy mattresses do exist, I have experienced plenty, and they still all looked better than this.
> It's really hard to know what's a good price for a mattress.
I don't understand this at all. You can Google and have all the prices right at hand, so comparison shopping by number isn't hard.
You can go to a mattress store and lay on a handful of mattresses and figure out pretty quickly what you like - is the pillow top or foam too soft? Do the coils poke too hard? Too firm? Too heavy for you to move when you need to do the sheets? - You admitted to doing this yourself.
I could never see myself buying a mattress from a company like Casper personally. Returning something like a mattress because you don't like it has got to be a level of hassle that I can't even begin to imagine being worth it, vs just making sure you bought one that you're comfortable with in the first place.
>...for me, even the boxspring beats the mattress in terms of "this is so large how the heck am I going to get it from point A to point B".
Eight years ago, I moved into an apartment with a very narrow staircase with a 90 degree bend in it. I purchased a new mattress, and couldn't fit the boxspring in it. The delivery guys took the boxspring back, and got me a boxspring that comes in two pieces, called a "split boxspring". It's basically two twin boxsprings that you put side by side. You can see one here: http://www.raymourflanigan.com/beautyrest-recharge-high-prof...
You don't notice anything different when you're on the bed. I've kept the boxspring through various moves, and I'll never buy a non-split one again. Moving the two pieces is so much easier; they're not unwieldy or heavy at all.
Now that you mention it, you’re so right. I did some of my best work in recent memory on a hotel mattress this past weekend. I’ve had a foam mattress for the past 6 years or so and thinking back, it really makes a big difference.
reply