It’s been a very interesting month with a lot happening behind the scenes both in terms of website development and in terms of manufacturer membership.
I re-arranged the “internal workings” of the website so that a commenting system was available on all the pages of the website with all the comments being posted directly in the forum as well as on the page itself. This is an amazing system and for those of you that are interested is part of the Kunena forum that I am using and is an add on called Kunena Discuss. When I first started developing the website I was using a content management system called K2 which was great but was not compatible with Kunena discuss so I had to switch back and turn all the pages back into Joomla articles … not as easy a job as I thought it would be.
I will also be publishing the initial list of the founding manufacturer membership in the next few days with a menu link on the main menu area so it will be available from every page on the website. I’m excited about this as it is a wonderful group of high quality manufacturers that represents amazing value in mattresses. All of them without exception have been truly supportive of what I am doing and have offered great feedback, ideas, and insights.
Once this is published, I will of course continue to talk with manufacturers but will also start to focus more on creating a “consumer presence” on the web and beginning to get back to what I love the most … which is helping people to find great mattresses at great prices and that fit their unique needs and preferences. It is an exciting time and the beginning of much more to come.
Thank you for all the info on this site and the time it must take to provide it. I’ve never done this before, so I hope I’m asking my question in the correct place. Could you tell me if the Tennessee-made MurMaid mattress, sold factory-direct in Chattanooga, is a good quality mattress for my daughter and her fiance who are getting married next month? Thanks!
I switched your post to a new topic so that information about Murmaid would be easier for others to find instead of being “buried” in a different topic.
Just in case you haven’t read it yet … the first place to start your research is the mattress shopping tutorial here which has all the basic information, steps, and guidelines that you will need to make the best possible choice … and know how and why to avoid the worst ones.
The most important part of the “value” of a mattress purchase is PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) so I would make sure that your daughter and her fiance do some careful and objective testing on any mattress they will be sleeping on.
Outside of PPP … the most important part of a mattress purchase is to make sure that you know the specifics of all the materials in a mattress (see this article) regardless of which manufacturer makes it so that you can make sure there are no weak links in the mattress (see post #4 here) and can make more meaningful comparisons with other mattresses.
Onc you have tested for the suitability of a mattress and you know the quality of the materials … the other parts of your personal value equation (including the price of course) would also be important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase.
As you know … Murmaid is a local manufacturer and they fit the profile of the type of manufacturer that I would normally prefer to deal with that make better quality/value mattresses than their mainstream competitors. They have also been transparent about the materials in their mattresses and have told me that they will gladly provide the specific information you need so that you aren’t making a “blind” purchase since every manufacturer makes mattresses that use lower and higher quality materials in different budget ranges. Having said that … there are some recent indications that they may no longer be as transparent as they once were (see post #8 here) so I would always make sure that you are able to find out the specifics of all the materials in any mattress you are considering here.
A forum search on Murmaid (you can just click this) will bring up more posts that mention them. Some of the other options or possibilities in the Chattanooga area I’m aware of are also listed in post #2 here but I would certainly include Murmaid as a priority in your research.