So, we are looking for a queen size mattress to put in our guest room. We are fairly budget limited, so something under $500 would be ideal. I realize this doesn’t give anyone much room to work with, but I’m basically just wondering what would be the best “bang” for our buck?
The first sleepers on this thing will most likely be my parents, and our house does get fairly cold these days, so something that sleeps warm would likely not go amiss.
If I really can’t get anything decent quality for that much money, I think our best bet would be to just get a no-name mattress from Craigslist for a couple hundred bucks, and sleep on that for a few days, swapping our 100% natural latex into the guest room while my parents are here.
I don’t care so much about any other guests that may show up later
With a guest bedroom your own testing for PPP wouldn’t be as important because it would need to be suitable for many people instead of just one or a couple. The quality/durability of the materials also wouldn’t be as important because it will only be used occasionally.
I would probably consider a basic mattress with an innerspring (either a Verticoil or a Bonnell which tend to be available in lower price ranges) because most people are more familiar with the “feel” of an innerspring mattress. If you purchase a firm mattress that is in a low budget range (generally with thinner and/or lower quality comfort layers) then you may be able to buy a topper as well so that your guests would have a choice of a firmer mattress or a softer version with the topper on top. Without a topper I would tend to choose something in the “mid range” of softness so that it would be suitable for more people.
Something like this or something similar from a local manufacturer may make a good choice and in the firm version would still leave room in your budget for a topper.
I should also mention that you may need a foundation as well if you don’t already have one or if your bed doesn’t provide suitable support for the mattress. Inexpensive foundations that would probably be OK for a guest room are often available at local chain stores or mainstream retailers if you are buying a “mattress only”. There are also some inexpensive foundations listed in the foundation post here as well (especially the wire grid type combination foundation/frames).
