On Nov 20, 6:12*pm, Home Guy wrote:
Dwight wrote:
We spent a lot of money at Macy's for a Sealy mattress with a
form-fitting foam which was supposed to be the best thing since
sliced bread. It may have been called Sealy True Form.

We would like to buy a new mattress. Does anyone have a
recommendation for a no-nonsense, firm mattress?

Here's what I can tell you about mattresses.

I've got a king-size double-sided King Koil mattress that has a bit of a
pillow-top layer on it (about an inch thick on both sides) and it's
covered in a sort-of shiny, smooth fabric. *This mattress is probably
pushing 15 years old.

I have a matching box spring to go with it.

At some point in the past few years I started waking up with a back
ache. *I put up with that for a while, then decided it's time to go
mattress shopping.

I was totally ****ed off at what I found for sale. *What I didn't like:

1) single-sided. *99.99% were single sided.

2) pillow-top was way to thick.

3) fabric covering was way to plush, soft, delicate.

So, taking these one at a time:

I wanted a double-sided mattress, but apparently at some point around
the year 2000, the industry switched to single-sided. *Sales people will
tell you that's good- you don't have to flip the mattress any more (not
that you *needed* to flip a double-sided mattress as opposed to just
rotating it just like you also have to do with a single-sided
mattress). *But that wasn't why the industry went to single-sided. *The
reason was new fire safety regulations (something about burn or
combustion time) that could be more easily met by making the mattress
single-sided.

The additional thickness of the pillow-top is I think a way to counter
consumer expectations of not having a double-sided mattress. *"Well, if
you're not going to give me a double-sided mattress, you'd better make
that single-side extra thick and cushy".

Which brings us to the third point. *The extra plush, velvety soft cover
found on many mattresses. *Now, I don't know about you, but a cover like
that just screams to want to absorb all manner of body fluids. *Not like
the mattress cover of my existing mattress (that shiny, smooth fabric)
which I believe is known as "damask".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damask

Now, when you have a thick layer that needs to be quilted, then you
can't use something like damask because there'd be too many wrinkles and
stress points on the fabric. *So they go with a more stretchy, soft
fabric - which helps to sell the mattress when you're in the show room
and you put your hand down to feel it. *Now, it's a crock to have such a
soft absorbant cover fabric when you consider you're going to put a
sheet between it and your body anyways, and possibly even a water-proof
mattress cover.

Ok, so I was ready to plunk down what-ever it took for a descent
mattress, but I was not going to buy one of these single-sided versions.

So I went back to the drawing board (almost literally) and got a 3/4"
sheet of 4x8 plywood and put it under my side of the bed - between my
old King Koil mattress and the box spring.

Instantly my morning back pain went away. *Upon closer examination, it
turns out that the top surface of the box spring (fabric strung tightly
over the widely-spaced spring rails) just couldn't support the mattress
coils properly. *The plywood made for a solid *flat* surface and worked
perfectly.

That was maybe 2 years ago, and I'm still sleeping on that same
mattress.

If you do a bit of web-searching about mattresses, you'll find that
there are people that search for 2-sided mattresses, and companies that
will supply them, as in this:

http://www.stlbeds.com/articles/2008...l-find-a-good-...

I think I will try that. The king on our bed has 'form fitting'
depressions and they are there whether the mattress is flipped or
rotated.

Harry K