I have a pretty darn tiny bedroom. I am also a thin lanky guy. I would be happy 95% of the time to sleep on a mattress that’s about 22-28" wide for the sake of space, but maybe 5% of time be able to convert the bed to something closer to a full/queen, ideally with as little friction as possible. I’ve thought about my options and what I’ve come to is that the perfect solution to this would be a mattress that folds length wise in half, where flipped shut is ~25" wide and when it’s flipped open, it’s ~50" wide. Give or take a few inches either way is fine. The bed frame is no problem, I made my current one and I intend to make one again that can pull out and convert widths.
These mattresses not only exist, there seems to be a lot of them. Particularly for RVs. The issue is I like a mattress that’s got some umph to it, and all these I’m seeing are made with foam. I’m often lifting things or on my feet all day for work and I’ve gotten used to having a tough spring mattress to support my back.
TLDR: Do length wise folding spring mattresses exist? I would also be open to other solutions. One idea I had was to get two 25" mattresses and just stack 'em until I want to convert to the wider setting, but I also am having a hard time finding 25" wide spring mattresses to begin with.
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Hello gogojoseph.
Welcome to our Mattress Forum 
Lengthwise-folding innerspring mattresses in the size range you’re describing basically don’t exist, and there’s a mechanical reason why: an innerspring unit is a welded grid of interconnected coils, so there’s no way to put a hinge down the middle without either breaking the coil grid at the fold line or building in a permanent soft/dead zone right where the fold is. That’s why every RV/folding mattress you’re finding is foam or a thin pocketed-coil hybrid — those materials can flex without structural damage.
A closer match to what you actually want (rather than a hinge) is a split setup: two narrow mattresses placed side by side that zip or strap together into your full/queen width, then separate when you want the narrow footprint. This is the same principle used in split king setups (two twin XLs zipped into a king), just at a narrower width. The catch is finding 25"ish innersprings off the shelf as that’s not a stock size anywhere. Your best bet would be a custom mattress maker who builds bespoke innerspring sizes (a few specialty/RV mattress manufacturers and some regional custom shops do this); you’d order two narrow spring mattresses with the width you want and connector straps or a zipper system between them.
Your “two mattresses” instinct was spot on, I’d just push them side by side rather than stacking vertically since stacking two mattresses on top of each other is going to feel unstable and weirdly tall, while side-by-side with a strap/zip system gets you the narrow-to-wide conversion with actual innerspring support in both modes.
NikkiTMU