okra: Sweet dreams will be mine!

We ordered our new mattress a week ago, and now it is here! We decided to go with the Savvy Rest natural latex mattress. This is the mattress that we bought, at the Online store we bought it from.

It is made with organic latex and has a removable organic wool and cotton cover that can be cleaned. The design of the mattress makes it possible to customize the firmness of each side, so my side is a bit firmer (because I have back problems). We plan to use the mattress without a box-spring, directly on a platform bed. Right now it is on the floor (until our bed frame arrives). We've slept on it for two nights and so far, it's excellent. I'll post a more detailed review update after I get it on the frame and give it a thorough testing.

Natural (organic) latex is a good solution if you like the idea of foam, but are concerned about the chemicals that go into conventional "memory foam" and Tempur-Pedic mattresses. These chemicals are released into the air as the material degrades over time. I personally don't like the thought of my face being pressed against something that produces potentially harmful fumes. Latex is also very resistant to dust mites and mildew, which is a plus for allergy sufferers.

If you are looking for a new mattress, here are a few resources I found helpful regarding latex:

Here is some information from Savvy Rest about latex. While this was written by someone selling latex products, it is the most detailed and even seemingly the most frank discussion on latex that I found.

Interesting site on mattresses, titled "What's the Best Mattress". However, I found the forum part of the site to be more helpful and less "commercial".

This is a thread on the What's the Best Mattress forum about Tempur-Pedic mattresses and the (scary) chemicals that go into them.

A couple of other bloggers posted interesting/helpful info on mattresses in general not too long ago, at Not Martha and Fig and Plum. There are some interesting Ask Metafilter links at the Not Martha page. There didn't seem to be a lot on latex mattresses at Metafilter, though, surprisingly.

And if you are interested in my longer personal bed shopping experience, you can keep reading...

The new mattress unexpectedly arrived on Tuesday. We weren't expecting it to even ship before that date. It arrived in two hugeomongo boxes; the layers of foam were rolled up inside. Luca was sitting on top of the largest opened box and nearly fell into the hole in the center of the rolled up foam sheets. (!) I think that we were more alarmed than her, though. She's still having a blast with the now empty boxes, which are temporarily stashed in the basement. We are hanging onto them, just in case we need to switch one of the latex sheets for a different firmness (which is free of charge, btw, excepting shipping costs).

We don't have the new queen size bed frame yet (see below), but were so excited to try out the new mattress that we set it up on the living room floor. I've slept on it for two nights, one on my firmer side, and one on Keith's softer side. It is sooo indescribably more comfortable than our old mattress. Oh man, there is no comparison. I didn't want to get up this morning. Though, I think that my side may be a bit too firm, ironically. I believe that the firmer mattress produces a pressure point on my hip. I'm wondering if it will feel different once it is on the frame, rather than directly on the floor.

My main observation this far regarding comfort is that the foam conforms to my body, without being too spongy. This is especially true for Keith's softer top layer. I've had problems in the past with my spine and hip twisting when I lay on my side, as the leg not in contact with the mattress is at more of an angle than the one laying flat against the bed. To remedy this, I had to sleep with a pillow between my knees. This bed eliminates this twisting, as the mattress is softer on the ends (where your head and feet would go) and softer in the middle (where your hips are) so that my hips sink in a little, aligning my hips and legs better.

In preparation for the new mattress, we've had to shop for a new frame as well, because our new queen mattress won't fit our old double frame. I was feeling a little sad because I like the quirky metal frame we have. It's very old, from maybe the 1930s? My parents had it for some time, since the early 80s perhaps, and I'm kind of sentimentally attached to it. (When I was little, I had a lot fun jumping and doing summersaults on it. Hmm, maybe that's partly why the mattress is so bad now, doh!) It was given to us because no one else in our extended family wanted it, as it was painted a disgusting mustard yellow color. My dad sandblasted off the yellow and repainted it white, which was a big improvement. In fact, I think those who had initially palmed it off on my parents were just a little jealous after it was fixed up, haha. My mom kindly let me use it when I got my first apartment, so I plan on returning it to her. So at least I don't expect that it will be gone forever.

I went shopping for a new bed frame in Kansas City the Sunday before last. We had previously done some looking around at local shops without much luck. There are a lot of bad furniture places in existence around here. They are jammed full, so that you can hardly walk through, with really cheesy fiberboard furniture. We did find one promising store, where we purchased our futon from when we moved into our house. It's a smallish, locally owned shop with higher quality furnishings. They have a lot of nicely designed pieces. They had solid wood frames, as opposed to all of the cheaply made fiberboard stuff we kept finding at the other places. We were also lucky enough to visit when the owner was there; he was very helpful and we almost bought a frame from him.

But, just to be sure I had shopped around enough, I decided to make a stint to Nebraska Furniture Mart (NFM) in Kansas City before making any final purchases (their website is terrible, not really worth visiting in my opinion). It was a pleasant day out and I had a nice lunch with my family before commencing with my shopping. My mom and dad were nice enough to drive me out to the mart. At first my mom and I were horrified by the furniture we found there, it was mostly really cheapo looking, fake veneered pieces. Also, I would ask various clerks questions about the furniture and they would respond only to my mom. I do look young, and not that I'm complaining about that, but it was a bit frustrating. We were about to give up, when I saw the very same bed frame that I had looked at in the Columbia shop. But, for half the price! They also deliver here, at no extra charge! Yay! It turned out that the frame I want was not in stock, but is slated to arrive sometime mid December. I didn't think that it would be a problem at the time, because we thought the bed would arrive later. The clerk in that particular department was actually quite nice and did answer my questions to me directly instead of to my mom. I felt a little like a traitor, buying from the big box store instead of from the little, independent guy. But for that much savings, I went ahead and bought it. I saved so much that I was able to buy the matching dresser as well. Ahhh, I hope my karma isn't ruined. ;)

This is the bed we are getting. It's "Edo" from Sitcom furniture. It's much lower to the ground than what we have now, which I think I will like. I like it so much that my old bed frame separation pangs aren't so bad now.