Brooklyn Bedding Best Mattress Ever

Hi matwhich,

There is more about the break in and adjustment period in post #3 here. It can vary from person to person but it would normally be about a month or less … and sometimes much less for some people.

There are also some suggestions in post #2 here that may be helpful. I don’t know what type of mattress protector or mattress pad you have but it’s also possible that it could be interfering with the ability of the foam layers to contour to the shape of your body which could be firming up your mattress as well which could also affect alignment/support.

Phoenix

First, see the end for my questions if you want to skip all the other details…
Second, thanks for the info I’ve consumed prior to this post.

We’re ordered a King Brooklyn Bedding BME in medium firmness. We decided on this based on recommendations on this site (and other recommendations) and after testing some latex/other foam beds in a local store to ensure we like the feel of latex vs. memory foam and innerspring beds. We thought the soft might be too soft, not just for feel, but causing our 6 year old daughter who climbs in with us to roll into me (I’m 200lbs.).

Background: We’ve typically purchased very soft/plush beds and have enjoyed them. We’ve also spent many times more than the cost of this mattress. The Heavenly Bed and W Beds are okay (saved by the toppers/pads they use), but are too firm for our taste, for example. Our current bed is 11 years old and the indentations are too large/deep. At this time, however, we’re not looking to spend $3500 for a Dunlopillo or $6500 for the other brand I tried. One of the opinions I’ve developed is that nearly any bed will develop indentations overtime (unless we buy an expensive flippable such as a Vispring and really flip it) or buy a foam bedd with no topper. My strategy is to buy a less expensive mattress with the idea that I can replace a $900 bed three times in 10 yrs for the cost of a $2700 bed.

Anyway, so we like soft beds and need a foundation (we’re going from Cal King to King). The plan was to buy an Ikea storage bed (Malm) and buy the more expensive flexible slats (Lonset) which have a close spacing and have some flex for added comfort. The thought was that with a medium, a flexible base and the addition of a decent mattress pad/cover ($100ish cotton/poly/bamboo or some such, not a topper), we’d get a fairly plush feel, some good bounce with some underlying support.

We were about to buy the bed and then saw the foundations with legs. The Sultan Atloy is the most expensive. It is an upholstered foundation and you can add legs (so we can still slide storage drawers or bins underneath). It also looks more “grownup” than most other Ikea bed offerings (and it more expensive than most). The upholstery is padded underneath and is of a quality such that you can use exposed (it’s made to be used that way, without the need for a bed skirt).

From the top down, it is constructed as follows:

  1. Fairly substantial cloth cover, pulled taut.
  2. Bonnell Steel Coils. Can’t identify gauge or spacing. They seem to be about 2"-3" tall.
  3. Rigid wood slats at 2 1/4" spacing.

It has a wood from, of course, around the outside with padding and the upholstery over that. It has a 25 year warranty. For Ikea, it’s expensive. $450 for the king base, plus $80 for the legs we chose and $5 for a set of connectors (it’s a split base). It’ used as a base for their own most expensive, latex based, mattress.

So, to the questions:

  1. Is this an appropriate base for the mattress?
  2. Will it shorten the life o the mattress significantly? We don’t expect to get 10 years. If we get 3-5 years from the mattress, I’m fine.
  3. Will the coils give us a little more cushion, help with a coil mattress like bounce, without causing things like "roll-in’ up top?

Thoughts and advice appreciated.

Austin, your base for the mattress sounds fine. I’ll tell you something. I’ve been eyeing the Captain’s bed for awhlle myself. I won’t share a link with you because you will probably drool all over the computer screen.

Oh, and your mattress is designed to last for over ten years. If you get less then ten you can, and should call the company that you purchased it from. BB is guaranteeing ten years and, I suspect they are a company to stand behind their warranty.

Ok, I lied. Go ahead and drool. Now I need to find plans to make a similar one for me and my family.

http://www.ultimatebed.com/landing/?sesid=JHkrfKEAhBXeu78Sgos

Hi AustinOski,

I switched your post and the other replies into a new topic of it’s own since it is more about the foundation than the mattress.

The soft would be softer than most people in your weight range would choose based on “averages” and it certainly makes sense that you would be compressing the softer foam layers more which would cause your daughter who is lighter to roll into you.

There is some good information about the 3 most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase in post #13 here which can help you make more meaningful quality/value comparisons between mattresses in terms of suitability (how well you will sleep), durability (how long you will sleep well), and the overall value of a mattress compared to your other finalists based on suitability, durability, and all the other parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you (including the price of course and the options you have available after a purchase to fine tune the mattress or the exchange return options that are available to you).

The most common reason for premature soft spots (virtual impressions) or visible impressions in a mattress (regardless of the price of the mattress) is lower quality materials in the upper comfort layers (a mattress will tend to soften or break down from the top down) but if you follow the suggestions in the quality/durability guidelines here and make sure that a mattress you purchase used higher quality and more durable materials and that it doesn’t have any weak links in the design then it would be reasonable to expect that a mattress (regardless of the price) will have a useful life in the range of 7 - 10 years and if the materials are higher quality and more durable than the minimum guidelines then it would likely be in the upper end of the range and possibly even longer.

I would keep in mind that the price of a mattress isn’t a good indication of how long it will last and there are many mattresses that are in a much higher budget range that use lower quality and less durable materials that will soften and break down much too quickly relative to the price you paid. There are also many mattresses in lower budget ranges that use very low quality materials that may only end up having a useful lifetime that can be measured in months or possibly a few years. The most reliable way to assess the durability and useful life of a mattress relative to different people and other mattresses you are considering … regardless of the price … is based on the quality and durability of the materials and components inside it.

It certainly isn’t an ideal choice. There is more about the different types of support systems that generally work best with different types of mattresses in post #1 here. There is also more about support systems that would be suitable for TheBestMattressEver (or other mattresses that use a similar support core) in this topic as well. In general terms … a foam mattress will do best on a support system that has very little to no flex under the mattress and that has a large enough support surface area and small enough gaps in between the load bearing surfaces to prevent the mattress from sinking or sagging into any gaps in the support system over time.

It may shorten the useful life of the mattress to some degree because of the additional flexing under the mattress (although I don’t know how much) but the biggest issue is that the additional flex may affect the support of the mattress and the ability of your sleeping system to keep you in good alignment over the course of the night. The only way to know this for certain though will be based on your actual sleeping experience.

The coils won’t provide as much cushion as adding a topper because the mattress on top of the coils will absorb most of the weight of the people sleeping on the mattress and if you have a foam mattress that is too firm then I would use a topper instead of adding some additional flex underneath the mattress which you may or may not feel. It could add a little bounce to the mattress but latex is already a very resilient material so this wouldn’t normally be a significant issue and the box spring under the mattress could also add to motion transfer between the sides of the mattress as well.

Phoenix

Thanks Phoenix. I got the Luna mattress protector : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002AQPUW0/ref=twister_B00A8QZXC6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

I bought a queen size to use with my older mattress as a test and it seemed fine so i got it to use with the BME. Does it look ok to you?
Thanks much!

Hi matwhich,

You can see my comments about the pros and cons of different types of mattress protectors in post #89 here. While the thin “membrane” type of protectors such as the Luna can have some effect on sleeping temperature for some people … it would be uncommon for them to have any significant effect on the “feel” or contouring of the mattress.

Phoenix

well lets try this again. last time i typed this all out last week and as i hit enter my interent crashed and lost it all.

So Ive had my medium firm brooklyn bed for a little over a month now so this is a follow up of my initial reaction.

Unfortunately not much as changed from how i felt the first two nights on this mattress.

I have a queen size and sleep alone so i have room to move around. Ive tried sleeping on both my back and my side. either way it seems like i wake up with my back aching in about 6 hrs. Normally i toss back and forth quite a bit before finally waking up all the way. when im on my back it across my shoulder blades ache and when im on my side its around the bottom of my rib cage.

To me the initial firmness of the mattress seems to hard. No gradual effect of being soft and then gradually firming up for support.

last week i went out of town and stayed in a motel that had an older coil mattress in it. the bed felt hard/uncomfortable when i layed on it on my back but when i woke up in the morning., i layed there for a minute trying to absorb how i lfelt… ( i was on my side) what came to my mind was i couldnt feel the mattress. its like it had vanished under me. in the last 40 days ive slept on this mattress that has been missing. im always aware that im laying on something and for me its not that pleasant.

quality wise…size wise…smell, heat, even sitting on the edge i have no complaints at all.

I really hate to send it back but at this point im seriously considering it. I went for about 3 years suffering on my old mattress and it doesnt make sense to pay out this much money just to be in the same situation.

its good to see that others are having a more positive experience tho. its amazing how subjective comfort is.

David

Hello sleeplessinutah,

It is unfortunate that your experience is not as positive as most of the folks here on the forum. I would be happy to speak with you in hopes that we could find a solution. Please feel free to contact me and I would be happy to help you with this.

Best Regards,
Mario
Brooklyn Bedding
480.323.8831

Phoenix,

Thanks for the reply above. Interestingly, when I spoke with Keaton at BB, he said any foundation would do (including our old box spring set). However, after reading your posts, I went to the BB site and found this:

brooklynbedding.com/blog/buying-a-foundation-for-a-latex-or-memory-foam-mattress/

It clearly states not to use a box spring and that it might void the warranty. So, the Ikea Sultan Atloy is a no go based both on that and your comments above and in the support thread.

Both of you (Phoenix and BB) recommend Ikea products as a viable solution. However, the slatted wood bases and foundations (for use with their frames) have positive and negatives for a foam mattress such as the BME, based what I’ve read on this site:

Negatives

  1. The slats have flex, you recommend rigid.
  2. The only rigid base (Lade) only comes in twin size (we have a king).
  3. The foundations (Sultan Aram -not the box coil, we bought) have slats more than 3 inches apart.

Positives

  1. Flexible slats bases are as close as about 1/2 apart (Lonset).
  2. Flexible slats ( have strong center beam running head to foot.
  • Do you recommend a specific Ikea solution as better than other Ikea solutions for a BB BME mattress, if someone is going to buy there?
  • Is the wider spacing of the slats in the Sultan Aram mitigated by the taut cloth over the top?
  • Is the flexible nature of the Lonset offset by the very close spacing, strong center support and divided structure (slats for each side of the bed)?

Note: Just chatted with Mario at BB, their POV is the flex in the slats is okay, provided they are less than 3" apart. We’d get the Lonset with the 1/2 spacing (seems closer would be better). Perhaps the flex is little enough that it’s not a problem?

I’m going to go to Ikea and measure the distance between the slats on the Sultan Aram. I did a search, but could not find the metric on this site. Perhaps others will benefit.
Thanks,

AO

Hi AustinOski,

My general suggestions are listed in the links I posted in my previous reply (post #3 in this topic).

The Aram has cardboard on top which would mitigate any sagging more than the cloth covering but as a general guideline I would still make sure that the slats were no more than 5" apart (and less is better) because the cardboard can still sag over time and it would also have less airflow under the mattress (see post #10 here).

I believe that the gap between the slats in the Aram would be about 7" (see post #2 here) which would be more than I would generally suggest.

While the Lonset would be supportive enough because of the closer distance between the slats and there wouldn’t be any risk of the mattress sagging in between the slats … a foundation with flexible slats can change the feel and performance of the mattress compared to a foundation that has slats that don’t have any flex. They would provide suitable support for most mattresses but they may not be the best choice if the mattress itself is already a good match for you in terms of PPP when it’s on a rigid support system that doesn’t have any flex because it could add some additional softness in the deeper layers of the sleeping system which could have an effect on support/alignment over the course of the night in some cases. There is more information about the pros and cons of a flexible slat support system in post #2 here.

The only way to know for certain though whether the combination of the Lonset and the BME would be a good “match” for you in terms of PPP will be based on your own personal sleeping experience.

Phoenix

Hi sleeplessinutah,

I’m also sorry to hear that your mattress isn’t working out as well as you hoped for.

Hopefully you’ve had the chance to try some of the suggestions in my previous reply here and it would also be a good idea to give Mario a call to see if they have any suggestions that would be helpful as well.

The good news is that you have the foresight to purchase a mattress that has a great return/refund policy so that you can try it in your bedroom instead of a showroom with little risk and the “worst case” is that you end up returning the mattress for a refund but of course it’s always preferable if there is a solution that doesn’t involve returning the mattress and having to start all over again.

I’m looking forward to any additional updates you have the chance to share once you’ve talked with Mario and decided on your next step.

Phoenix

Here is some info on Ikea products, as a follow-up to my previous posts:

  • The Sultan Aram foundation would be unsuitable for a Brooklyn Bedding BME mattress (and probably many other foam/latex mattresses), because the slats are about 7" apart.
  • The Lonset slats are very close together, about 3/4", but are very, very flexible.
  • The Luroy slats are spaced at 2 3/4" apart, have a little flex, but are much more rigid than the Lonset. The are also Convex, so if/when the mattress does cause flex, they may end-up being fairly flat (that’s just my guess, not factually based).
  • For a king bed, each slat is 1/2 the width of the frame and there is a metal support that runs the length of the bed (head to foot).

So, we are using the Leroy slats with an Ikea frame (Malm) with drawers.

Mario at BB says the Ikea slats should work with their mattress, btw.

So, we are using the Leroy slats with an Ikea frame (Malm) with drawers.

Hope this helps others. I could not find info on Ikea slat spacing for Ikea products on this site, Ikea’s site or using “the Google”.

Hi AustinOski,

I switched your post into the other topic you were posting in about support systems for the BME.

As I mentioned in the link in my previous reply … I would agree with you here.

I also agree that both of these would provide suitable support as long as they didn’t negatively affect the feel and performance of the mattress although they would need a bedframe with good center support to the floor that would provide the extra height that most people would need with both of these options.

Thanks for measuring the spacing for the Lonset and for the Luroy … I appreciate it :slight_smile:

Phoenix

Recently visited family and had my best nights sleep ever! Typically when I sleep on other beds I have uncomfortable nights and a sore back but not this time. I was so impressed with the bed that I asked what it was and that’s how I found out about the Best Mattress Ever. I have been researching beds and was sure I would go with a Yoga Bed until this experience - I couldn’t wait to get home and order my own! The ordering experience was super easy and my chat with Mario got me excited all over again! I can’t wait until my new mattress arrives!!!

Hi TAnsetta,

Congratulations on your new mattress :slight_smile:

As you know from your own experience and the other comments in this topic … you certainly made a great quality/value choice and I’m looking forward to your comments and feedback when you receive it.

Phoenix

I would typically say “Small world!” to such a story but in this case I can’t help but take it more as a sign that Simplified Choice mattresses are becoming more mainstream. Interesting times we live in! (And to Phoenix: when are you going to post part 3 of your stickied post on this topic? I’m interested to see what you have to say. :slight_smile: )

Hi drm870,

While online mattress purchases are still a relatively small part of the industry in general (most likely in the range of about 10% - 15% of total sales) and the simplified choices mattresses are a small part of online sales in general (they probably represent about 1% of the industry at the moment) … they are certainly having a disproportionate effect in the online community and comments relative to their size.

I am watching the progress of the “simplified choice” segment of the industry with interest and there are some new ones still to come, some of which are part of the more mainstream part of the industry ( see here and here) but it will still be some time before I can make more detailed comments about whether the general direction of this part of the industry follows the path that I (and many others that I talk to) are expecting it will.

In very general terms I would expect to see more new introductions between now and the end of the year or the early part of next year that will make the “simplified choice” category even more complex and confusing than it has already become and then past this point I would expect to see some consolidation next year as some of the less successful options leave the market and a smaller number of more successful options start to dominate this part of the industry and leave their competitors behind.

I would also expect that as consumers become more used to online purchases it will have some positive effects on some of the other online manufacturers and retailers that offer a wider variety of mattresses and also have some very good quality/value options available (that in some cases are better quality/value than most of the simplified choice mattresses) but aren’t in the “simplified choice” category.

I think that at some point towards the end of this year or the early part of next year I will probably write part #3 once the direction of this part of the industry and its effect on the industry in general becomes more clear.

Phoenix

Hi underground forum members,

I (as many of you have) went with the #BestMattressEver after owning a memory foam mattress that I’ve returned and trying (unsucsesfully) to find something affordable locally (you can read about my experience in the Chicagoland area here:https://forum.mattressunderground.com/t/glad-to-have-found-this-site-and-quality-sleep-shop).

When the mattress arrives I will follow up with some impressions.

But – first – I want to give a sincere thank you to Mario and Keaton at Brooklyn Bedding, who are extremely transparent with disclosing precisely what materials they use (making comparisons of online mattresses somewhat possible) and working quickly to get things processed and sent out. If you’re on the fence for this brand, their customer service is top notch. You can’t go wrong with this type of service at any price, and it’s phenomenal at the prices they offer.

More to come when I receive the mattress.

[quote=“knitty” post=56508]For the past month I’ve been sleeping on a firm, queen Brooklyn Bedding Best Mattress Ever, and I have to say it is way, way, way too soft. I even called to make sure they hadn’t sent the wrong one. But the label definitely says “Firm.”

The mattress provides comfortable support and feels good when I am lying down. But when I sit up on the bed to read or sit on the bed with my legs over the side or move from one spot to another, I really sink into the mattress (by several inches) more than I expect for a firm mattress, and the mattress is also bouncier than I’d like – a bit like I’d imagine a water bed to be. I’m not a large person at 120 lbs and 5’5". If I were to be pregnant, I’m pretty sure getting out of this bed would be a real problem.

I’m sad to say this will probably be returned. I am now back to searching for mattresses and am considering the Ikea Morgedal in firm. Tried it in the store yesterday and it was the only mattress there that had decent support.[/quote]

Not sure if any foam mattress will give you what you are looking for. You might consider a “hybrid” with springs and foam on top. We ended up with a Leesa bed and it has the same issue with edge support. I believe they all do. We’re about 30 days in and I am still on the fence. Wife likes it. For me it is a little bit too soft. Meaning the sink it provides. My body is deciding if that is what it likes while my brain is still trained on a spring mattress. I don’t watch tv, read, eat, etc in bed. So that is less of an issue for me. I have trained my body that when I get in any bed it is time for sleep. Good luck with your search.

Hi RJ29,

Congratulations on your new mattress :slight_smile:

As you know I think you made a great quality/value choice and I’m looking forward to your comments and feedback once you’ve received it as well.

Phoenix