Mattress Shopping

It was another dreary day in Santa Barbara. The entire week had been drab and cold and cloudy. Friday and Saturday provided respites of warmth and sunshine, which I had hoped would last through today, so I could wash the cars with Todd. Alas, it was not to be. So, we were left wondering what we could do today. I hit upon the idea of browsing local mattress and furniture stores to look for our ideal mattress.

We already had an idea of what we wanted: a king-size memory foam (like TempurPedic) mattress, but beyond that, we had to figure out what exact kind of memory foam (medium? firm?), whether we wanted a separate foam pillow top, foam pillows, etc...

So we visited several shops today and took the various mattress for test drives, obtaining all sorts of information from the salesmen in the process. The most obvious plus of the mattresses was exactly what they were designed for: the comfort factor and reduction in pressure points that springs normally exert. The next most important factor for me was the absorption of movement (remember those commercials featuring a woman jumping on one side of the bed while a glass of wine barely moves on the other side?)-- because Allan tosses and turns pretty violently at night, which sometimes causes earthquake-like tremors that sometimes wake me up.

Anyway-- the point of this entry is to inquire amongst my friends and see if they have any opinions (either personal or secondhand) about the mattresses? For example, one common complaint I've heard of is that the mattresses don't breathe as well as spring ones, causing people to get too warm. Not a problem for me, but potentially one for Allan-- depending on what "too warm" actually constitutes.

I'd be curious to see about other folks' experiences with memory foam mattresses, so please chime in with your (or your friends'/families') thoughts :-) Thanks!

(originally posted at: http://www.myspace.com/hellykwee/blog/327670177)