Love the site, been reading articles and forum for weeks now hoping that someone would have a similar question. Nothing exact so far, so stop being shy and lazy and ask myself.
The in laws have decided that we need a guest bedroom so that they can invite themselves to stay. The positive is the are willing to chip in for the mattress. Long story short, my wife and I have had a temperpedic mattress for about 10 years now and we both agree it is the best investment we have ever made. So until recently we had not been in the market for a new mattress as we could not be happier with the one we have.
The majority of the use for the mattress would be in a guest capacity but occasionally my wife will nap on it during the day. We were hoping to get something that would be a “middle of the road” option that wouldn’t be perfect for everyone but would provide a good quality of sleep. From reading multiple threads I will provide as much info for the sleepers as I can:
My mom: side sleeper 165 lbs sleeps on a traditional mattress now but has house sit and loves our mattress.
My wife: side sleeper 105lbs, loves our current temperpedic (not sure of model, think at that time only one option available and it is pretty firm
The In-laws: Insomniacs until they bought a temperpedic cloud 5 years ago (from our recomendation). Not sure of sleeping position and dare not ask weights.
We live in Denver 80219 and have been looking around online. The goal is to get a queen below $800. Having a lot of trouble finding beds that list the foam density for the different layers and the ones in and around our price range seem to utilize either too low of density for too much thickness or have bad reviews.
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Since it appears that your in laws will be the most common user of the mattress … if I was in your shoes I would find out which Tempurpedic model they have and look for a similar memory foam mattress from one of the manufacturers in the online list here that was a close comparison to the one you already know they sleep well on and was as close as possible to your budget range. If it’s the cloud luxe then it would be on the soft side more than a “middle of the road” side so you would need to decide if that was OK with you (it may be too soft for some of your guests). Otherwise you could choose one that was a little firmer (and likely less costly). Other than choosing a a mattress that is close to the one they have … I would use your phone conversations with each manufacturer as a guideline about which of their mattresses they think would make the best choice for your budget and an “average” comfort range.
Some of the better options I’m aware of in the Denver / Boulder area are listed in post #2 here. Since the mattress isn’t for you I would do most of the work on the phone since testing a mattress wouldn’t be necessary. If you wanted to take the time you could also test the Tempurpedic mattress that they have in a showroom and use your own “proxy testing” as the basis for deciding on a mattress which had a similar feel and comfort/support level but it may be difficult to find something that was close to their mattress and still had reasonable quality memory foam inside your budget.
One other option that may be worth considering is a basic firm innerspring mattress and adding a memory foam topper (around 3" or so) so that your guests had the option of a firmer mattress or a softer mattress with the memory foam topper (along the lines of post #2 here).
Thanks for the reply. We’ve narrowed our search to the Christeli Astoria and the Novosbed Sonata or the Classic. Both have black friday deals for free pillows. The Christeli offers two down pillows where Novos is offering memory foam pillows (our preference). So the question is in your opinion is there a $100 difference in quality between the Novos and Christeli? One of the Pros for the christeli is that they offer a $155 foundation whereas the Novos is $299. So again it’s a value vs. price consideration. Do you really think that the Christeli offers “adjustable firmness” or is that a gimmick. As a guest bed that would offer an advantage.
I know that you try not to recommend a specific mattress only provide guidance, but it would be great to know your opinion between these three options.
Thanks again,
Dustin
(And the In-laws are on vacation and couldn’t remember which model they had)
The Christeli Astoria is comparable to the Tempurpedic Contour Signature (which they call firm) , the Novosbed Sonata is comparable to the Sealy Optimum Destiny (which is the firmest of the Optimum Series), and the Novosbed Classic is the equivalent of the Tempurpedic Contour select (which they call extra firm) so all of these would be much firmer than the Tempurpedic Cloud that your in laws are used to sleeping on. You could test the equivalent of each of these to decide which one was closest to the “feel” you were looking for or which one felt the softest to you. If I had to guess at the relative firmness levels (bearing in mind that I haven’t tried any of them) from firmest to softest I would guess the the Classic, the Sonata, and the Astoria.
The Novosbed Sonata uses 4 lb gel memory foam which would be a little less durable than the 5 lb memory foam used in the other two but it’s also softer and since this is a guest mattress this wouldn’t be as significant to me as as how it felt.
With several mattresses that were different in design … a $100 price difference would be insignificant to me compared to the other parts of your personal value equation that may be more important to you and there is no way to “quantify” whether the difference would be worth it based on the cost of the individual materials (which manufacturers don’t disclose) so it along with the pillows would be just part of the things that I would consider as factors in your final choice based on all the parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you.
I would also treat the foundation as a separate purchase that didn’t factor into the mattress choice because all of these can be purchased as a “mattress only” with any suitable foundation and there are similar foundations to the one Christeli sells available as a separate purchase (see the foundation thread here).
I haven’t tried any of the Christeli’s mattresses in person so I can’t speak to the effectiveness of their dual sided option but the separate softness levels on each side would allow you to customize the feel of each side to some degree although the 3" of memory foam and the quilting on top would reduce the amount you would feel it compared to sleeping on the different firmness levels directly.
ADDED: I should also note that Christeli only has an exchange policy and no longer offers a return/refund as an optional add on that you could purchase for an extra $29.95.