#mattresses

[pratchettquotes]

"I thought we got rooms to ourselves," said Teppic.

Chidder, who had laid claim to the least exposed bed in the whole refrigerator, nodded at him.

"Later on," he said. He lay back, and winced. "Do they sharpen these springs, do you reckon?"

Teppic said nothing. The bed was in fact rather more comfortable than the one he'd slept in at home. His parents, being high born, naturally tolerated conditions for their children which would have been rejected out of hand by destitute sandflies.

Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

[goshyesvintageads]

Spring Air Co, 1975

[quietkohai]

Abandoned factory

[shy-girl04]

The Princess and the Pea

[veranka-s4cc]

Naturally Nestled Beds

I have some stuff in my wip folder that I never shared or I just did them for my own use but maybe some people will find them useful. So I guess I can complete some and upload? So here we go... One of Dream Home Decorator's bed separated + add-ons (toddler, single and double bed frames and mattresses). Enjoy :)

DOWNLOAD

[irradiate-space]

Hold on. How many people are you sleeping in your Alaska King bed.

[mycustommattresses]

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Please could you tell me all about your wool mattress? I looked into them a bit years ago (when I had chronic fatigue and was reading all sorts of scary things about the toxic fire-retardants in our mattresses we're breathing all night) but at the time I couldn't justify the expense, when my own mattress was only a few years old. Would love to hear why you love yours so much!

Where to start... XD

So, for everybody else that might not know this, in many places before the advent of modern foam mattresses, people slept in mattresses filled with wool, feathers, or hay. Where I live, as wool has been one of the main products for a long, long time, wool mattresses were the most common type.

(picture reference)

My parents' first home was a beach cabin, and we had wool mattresses there, which we left behind for the next owner when we moved; friends of mine that live on the countryside still have them in some places. So I had experience with them since childhood, and around last year, as I kept waking up with back pain every day, I started thinking more and more seriously about getting one, and earlier this year, after some research I found what is, to my knowledge, the only wool mattress maker in my city; so I bit the bullet and got one made for myself.

The saga of the purchase itself was something, because the shop was very folkloric, the owner a chatty old man who ballparked the cost of the mattress to me, and who also had on one of his tables something that looked like a wheel of cheese, but didn't smell like cheese but also didn't look like wood or a tool and I was too afraid to ask what it was. Anyways.

The cost itself in my case was around the same price a good foam mattress of the same size. The main difference that way is that a foam mattress will last you a decade, perhaps, a wool mattress can last a lifetime. BUT wool mattresses also require maintenance; you need to air them regularly (it will vary depending on the relative humidity of the place you live at, how many hours you spend in bed, etc), turn them around and flip them to distribute sinking, and because wool coils up, they need to be opened and the filling combed down and fluffled up once in a while (this also varies depending on your weight, hours spent in bed, level of comfort with flatness/stiffness, etc). Some say once every two years or so, it can be less it can be more. I think it is more organic that way, somehow (?) like how people joke about mattress stores being all fronts for money laundering because it is an item people so seldomly purchase, but when mattresses have maintenance, then the business does become sustainable. I digress.

So, experience these past few months: change of mattress hasn't really affected my fatigue at all, so probably the fire retardants are not relevant (wool itself isn't really that flammable at all without any additives, so that's still a pro if you are concerned about the fire retardant and other processing chemicals present in foam), but my morning back and neck pain is gone. GONE. And I sleep much better at night. You can feel the breathability of the material. Same with the support. The support of a foam mattress has a completely different tension. Think the difference of feel between stretchy pants and fitted pants that have no elastic component to them. The support is firm rather than tense.

Some people worry about wool attracting bugs, but I have never seen one of these get infested (?) so that's up for debate, I think. One pro of wool mattresses is that you can bend them and roll them up for cleaning and ventilation, but they also have the con that they are much heavier than a foam mattress, so I think if you aren't particularly buff, carrying a queen or king sized one from one room to another will require two people. The level of softness/stiffness of the mattress will depend a lot on the type and amount of wool it has.

I think I have covered all with this (?) If there's something else you'd like to know, please ask!

In general I am very happy with my choice and recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone for whom the pros as presented outweight the cons.

[meblojogisrbija]

[miss-bulldozer]

Original photo, don’t remove credit.

[jayfeatherfan1001]

So I was driving down the highway somewhere in Pennsylvania, and look what I found:

Dab smack in the middle of the highway on a 60 mph stretch, people were having to dodge 😒

[fatphobiabusters]

Mattress reviews! Obviously the deals are passed but if you are in the market here's some reviews.

[stone-cold-groove]

Introducing the greatest improvement in mattresses in fifty years.

[toughtink]

Hey girl! I saw you're looking at new mattresses, and I just had to do the same thing recently. I ended up getting an Ikea one since it was in my budget and doesnt have any of the harmful stuff like fiberglass in it. I've been using Ikea mattresses since college and they've always been amazing <3 Anyway, just wanted to share my two cents on it with you! I hope you find an amazing bed!

oooh this made me look into ikea more! i think our current mattress might be from ikea? it's lasted us a while, tbh, though now we're thinking about getting a larger bed because poor shaun is very tall and has just been Dealing With It since he first moved in all those years ago.

apparently, ikea is somewhat known for having fiberglass free mattresses, as well as keeping other harmful chemicals out of their products, so that's good! buuuuuuut a deeper dive shows that not *all* their mattresses are fiberglass-free. the amosen has "glass fiber" listed under materials which is akin to fiberglass (idk if it's like..technically different, but my understanding is that it can have many of the same harmful effects if it leaks out). but so far that's the only one i've seen listed like that just clicking through randomly. most of their stock is certainly without it which makes them some more affordable options compared to the fiberglass-free organic brands out there.

[veranka-s4cc]

Serene and Beauty Beds

Here are another separated beds from Dream Home Decorator + add-on for toddlers.

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[thevoidscreamer]

The history between sleep and me

Sleep and I have always had a unique relationship.

When I was little... 

my little brother and I shared a linen closet as a bedroom. I would see shadows dance across the walls at night. Sometimes, they would talk to me. The friendly creature who lived under my crib would bounce me awake so we could talk in the middle of the night. These same spirits would keep me company and comfort me when he awoke, screaming with colic and night terrors, night after night after night, well into our pre-teen years.

As a youth...

I was convinced aliens lived under my bed and ran experiments on me. I was happy to let them learn about humanity. I talked to them as I dozed off, dangling my hand over the edge of the bed in the hopes they would take more than just my blood back to their mothership. Sometimes, I still talk to them.

I would often wake up to the sound of telegraph beeps, or a song that would inevitably play on my radio alarm when it signaled the start to my day.

As a teen...

I was certain that a shadow figure was stealing my life energy, stalking me day and night, laying in bed with me and slowly killing me as I slept.

I hear words spoken and whispered over me as I enter into sleep.

I have visited vivid dreams most nights that I have slept. Some nights have lent themselves to a deep, restful sleep. Others, tossing and turning, struggling to get to sleep, struggling to stay there.

Sometimes, I am awake for days on end. It can get dangerous.

All throughout my life... 

I have been on a journey to find the conditions most conducive to allowing me to get meaningful rest. Now, at 28 years old, I feel I am finally getting close in a measurable, repeatable fashion.

Firm and floors from the start

From as early as I can remember, I liked sleeping on the floor. I was always seeking a firm sleeping surface. Soft is... overwhelming, unsteady, uncomfortable, cloying. I had a crib, and eventually, a bed, but it wasn’t uncommon to find me napping on the floor with my back or side pressed firmly against the wall.

Bunk beds proved dangerous

There was a period of time where we slept in bunk beds. At first, it was when we lived in the homeless shelter. I fell off the top, once. I dangled for a few minutes struggling to get back onto the railing, and then I fell on my back. Nothing came of it, but I wasn’t comfortable there. I moved so much in my sleep that one time I woke up wedged between the bars at the end. I didn’t get the top bunk after that. We took the bed apart, and when we moved into a house, my brother and I had our own rooms, and my bed was at a normal height for a USA kid’s bed. I often slept on the floor in my closet instead.

The “uncivilized” floor mattress that made me feel really great!

Some moves later, my bed was just a mattress on the floor. It was wonderful, and I slept so well I hardly dreamed or moved. We moved again, and with the move came a change to a different mattress (my late aunt’s mattress, I think she died in it, actually) and its accompanying bare-bones bed frame. I always had my parents’ hand-me-down pillows. They were flat and hard, perfect for me. But even though they had given me this much larger bed, I found I couldn’t sleep in it. Soon enough, I felt the presence of something malevolent.

I would rather sleep on stairs than in that bed..

During that time. I slept anywhere but my room. There was a broken futon chair that I curled up in until my parents said I wasn’t allowed to sleep there. I slept at the top of the stairs. I slept on the stairs themselves. Here is my dog, where she would sometimes sleep with me on the stairs. Eventually, I managed to convince myself that the entity was gone by learning how to spiritually clear and protect my room. There is a high likelihood the entity was not real, but its effects on me were very real. I got a new mattress and new bedding. It was comfortable, but I spent about 50% of my sleeping time on the floor in that room.

Adulthood and mattresses

As an adult, I experimented with many mattress types. I also spent a lot of sleeping time in cars and on couches. I shared a bed with all different shapes and sizes of beings -- some humans, some dogs, some cats. Then, this year I found myself sleeping (generally) alone. With only my needs to consider, I started to seriously evaluate what I was sleeping on, and why.

I had a pleasantly firm, thin, springless mattress, three pillows of varying sizes and firmness, all perched neatly atop a futon frame. I was sleeping decently, but not waking up feeling refreshed. And then I managed to sleep in quite a few hotels as a part of some traveling I had to do for work and a house hunt. I could not sleep in those hotel mattresses. I woke up so sore! I barely slept at all!

So, I got out the camping pad and sleeping bag I keep in my car in case I get stranded somewhere and have to sleep (this is just a part of my being chronically ill and anxious about it, it’s fine). I set it all up on the hotel room floor... and slept like a baby. I barely moved. My dreams were unmemorable. I woke up feeling limber and energized.

I tried it again.

I tried it again in a different hotel.

I tried it again under different circumstances.

I tried it again at home.

I tried it again at home with different materials.

Sleeping on the floor, as young me seems to have already figured out, is repeatably, under many different circumstances, the way that I sleep best!

So where does that leave me, and why am I telling you this? 

I’m about to embark on a new sleep journey, where I can find something that isn’t a camping pad that I can sleep on at home. I’m ditching my mattress, futon “bed frame,” and all the trappings that come with them in search of something more beneficial to me. Tomorrow, I will be testing out a tatami + shikibuton sleeping system. I’ve used buckwheat pillows for almost two years now and they work wonders for my neck, so I don’t plan to change that at all.

But my point is, sleep is such a crucial part of human life. It’s necessary, and it should be restful and rewarding. So listen to your body. Mine seems to have been saying “SLEEP ON THE FLOOR!” since I was a child. But USA and westernized marketing is all about sleeping in expensive “comfort,” without much consideration to how the mattress affects you long term.

Sleep wherever you get the best rest. If that’s the stairs, it’s the stairs! If that’s your grandmother’s couch, it’s her couch! If that’s the floor... well then, it’s the floor! You don’t have to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to sleep well. Try the floor. Try a camping pad, bed roll, air mattress, bundle of comforters, pile of pillows, and so on. I want to see your creative sleeping methods. 

I’ll update this in about a year with where I’m at in terms of sleeping systems! I look forward to seeing yours.