Help Finding Innerspring in SouthCentral Pennsylvania

Talk To The Experts
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Hi all, I am grateful to be here and learn from you. I’ve gotten such great advice and recommendations so far. I live in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and my husband and I are looking for a mattress. We mistakenly got an S Brand (Stearns) mattress with the Temperindulge foam and it has been miserable. It’s considered a medium pillowtop but the top layers sink in very deeply causing us to roll together towards the center. It also causes major back hammocking and sleeping in it is like being in a rainforest even though our room is 55 F. We plan to return it and not go with an S brand based on what we have learned from the forum.

We are struggling to find a mattress and could use some suggestions. We’ve been trying to visit as many stores as possible to narrow down our preferences. We are 140/190ibs, mostly back and side sleepers, but sometimes stomachs. We move around alot in our sleep and will need a Queen mattress with a boxpring/foundation. We both sleep very hot.

Preferences:

  • innerspring
  • sleep on top
  • tufted
  • Cushion firm tension to accommodate side and back sleeping
  • strong and durable edge support since we are on a Queen
  • minimal bounce - we seem to prefer a dense feeling mattress that doesn’t move or bounce too much when we switch positions multiple times in the night

We are open to everything but memory foam due to how hot we sleep. We have tried latex and seem to like it better when it’s not the top layer of the mattress. We seem to prefer either polyfoam, cotton, wool, microcoils, or a combo of those materials as our top layer with either latex or a non-memory foam support layer and then coils. We do seem to gravitate towards more luxury firm type feel.

So far we’ve tried mattresses at Gardeners in Lancaster, Colony House Chambersburg, and Martins in Ephrata PA. We really like the Millbrook Windsor 6000 Firm at Colony House but it was out of our price range and the more affordable Hampshires were not carried at the store. We’ve tried a few Hemingways and the Hemingway Acension in Luxury firm was decent but was a bit too bouncy and has foam encased edge for the price point. We also like the AH Beard Arlo Pillowtop by Paramount bc it felt very dense but it does have gel foam and memory foam in the comfort layers and we are worried about the layers melting in on us like our Stearns.

We would like to try the mattress first before we but it and prefer a generous trial/return policy. Out budget is approx. $3000. We are hoping to get to My Organic Bedroom to try the Naturpedics.

Any suggestions?

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Hi punkrockrosebud,
Welcome to TMU.

I did move you to the talk to the experts category as I was hoping a couple of our trusted members might give additional insight as they know every mattress in their line-ups. They may be able to pinpoint something that might have gotten overlooked.

It’s not possible to make specific suggestions or recommendations for either a mattress, manufacturers/retailers, or combinations of materials or components because the first “rule” of mattress shopping is to always remember that you are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress and there are too many unknowns, variables, and personal preferences involved that are unique to each person to use a formula or for anyone to be able to predict or make a specific suggestion or recommendation about which mattress or combination of materials and components or which type of mattress would be the best “match” for you in terms of “comfort”, firmness, or PPP or how a mattress will “feel” to you or compare to another mattress based on specs (either yours or a mattress), sleeping positions, health conditions, or “theory at a distance” that can possibly be more reliable than your own careful testing (hopefully using the testing guidelines in step 4 of the Tutorial or your own personal sleeping experience (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here).

Having said that and knowing a little about what you have experienced thus far in your mattress journey, hopefully we can finalize your mattress map.

As you know the Millbrook 6000 is a medium - medium firm mattress, utilizing 2000 hand nested pocketed springs and 4000 microcoils. What is unique about the Millbrook is the manner in which they lay their coils. Rather than a straight row x and y axis method, they use more of a hand nested honeycomb method to occupy more area of the mattress giving it a more sturdy and supportive disposition. The down side it that Millbrook does not offer to the buyer, the specs on their springs, guage sizes and thickness’s of the individual comfort layers. They offer the size of mattress and number of coils, a listing of types of materials used, but do not go into much detail. That makes it very difficult to compare it to any other mattress for its long-term durability and overall lasting comfort.

Plus, as the mattresses get more complicated, they get more expensive. Complicated does not mean better quality or a more successful mattress solution. Like all things the more complicated, the more it is “perceived” to be expensive.

While my I know this mattress is known to be a good quality luxury mattress. There is simply no way to validate it for your comfort and longevity expectations.

At 140 and 190 the two of you should be able to find a happy compromise with that medium to medium-firm level. With a 3k price tag, you should be able to find something that suits the two of you. I am with you on the foam encased edge, I am a bigger fan of edge-to-edge coil construction.

Trusted member @TheCleanBedroom has several mattresses that fit your category along with the others that you have tried and seem to like. The Clean Bedroom Hudson Luxe. Their naturepedic Naturepedic EOS has potential, but you have to remember, that a fully tufted mattress will not have interchangeable layers like the EOS. When a mattress is hand tufted, the tufting goes through the entire mattress to keep the layers from shifting and giving it that awesome luxurious look, that you will be covering up with mattress protector, sheets and the rest of your bedding. The benefit is you can swap layers for comfort issues, so the changes of making a “mistake” are minimized.

@FLEXUS_COMFORT has a hybrid that offers a cooler sleeping mattress, again with customization for each sleeper. Quadra-flex. While it doesn’t meet all the criteria, it meets most other than the tufting.

@ShovlinMattress which is a two-hour drive from Lancaster, offers another alternative to what you like Trizone Classic.

Finally, I will mention @DLX again, I may have mentioned to you before. Not tufted, but a very nicely build mattress, and they have their no hard feelings guarantee. It is a polyurethane mattress, but with your bmi’s you fall right into the comfort zone with this mattress in their medium-firm DLX Premier.

Look, there are a plethora of choices out there. When you know the materials from which the mattress is made, it brings you a step closer in the selection wheel. We are all different and our preferences may change over time for some, they may not be exactly what we think they are.

It is good that you are able to get out there and try some mattresses. As you know, even laying on the mattress for 20-30 minutes does not guarantee success, it may simply eliminate those that you know you don’t like.

Hopefully, you have a little more options now. Good luck testing.

Give us the feedback on the naturepedic.

All the best,
Norm

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Thanks for your response, Norm! I think we want to keep away from foams due to the hot sleeping. Unless there are certain foams or the arrangement of the foam layers that will keep the mattress relatively cool? I do not like the feel of memory foam so having that at the top is out. Poly feels ok. I would be happy with the feel of springs plus a luxury combo of latex, wool, cotton and/or microcoils.

I am going to try Naturepedic next Friday. I am going to be nearby a huge mall that has a Macys, Bloomingdales, and Lord N’ Taylor (King of Prussia Mall). I might stop there since in the area – do the department stores still carry mattresses in store? As I’ve been reading through the threads, I’ve noticed warnings about the department store “version” of some mattress brands. Do you know which ones to commonly avoid?

There is also a Charles P. Rodgers store. I am going to search the forum for that brand too. I am familiar a little with them as I looked at their iron beds a few months ago but I went with a Wesley Allen iron bed. Not sure about their mattresses.

I would really prefer to try the mattress before I purchase it.

I did have a disappointing experience yesterday. I saw a mattress of interest on a local retailer’s website. It was on clearance too. I went to try it and REALLY liked it. But after an hour of trying it, I found out that only the floor model I was trying was available since the line is being refreshed in 2024 and the rest are sold out and no longer being manufactured. I was pretty bummed. I didn’t want to buy the floor model as it seemed pretty dingy and likely had been on the floor since 2020. I also did not think the clearance price was worth the value of the floor model. It was the Paramount Joma Kiwi Angus.

Anyway, getting closer. I have until the end of January to make a decision since.

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punkrockrosebud,

When deciding on a mattress, you certainly want to do what is comfortable for you. Here at TMU, we like to point out the obvious, the not so obvious and what is often hidden. None of the mattresses I mentioned utilize viscoelastic heat retaining, sinking, slow quicksand feeling memory foam.

To become a trusted member of TMU, one of the criteria is that the manufacturer or retailer must be transparent with the materials that go into their mattresses. So where some companies may offer a list of “ingredients” in their mattress, many do not tell you what exactly the layers are precisely comprised with. Although, the Millbrook and Hemingway that were suggestions on other forums, as you experienced they do not release all of the needed information to make competent comparisons, regardless of the premium quality each of them are.

All of the companies here either list openly or will offer you openly in detail what their mattresses are made with. Brooklyn Bedding, which I am rather fond of, is on of the few BinB’s that offer such information. @Dlx is another. Despite their mattresses not looking like a BinB. Naturepedic has been compressing and box shipping for years.

That certainly does not mean if a company does not release their information to the public, they are a bad company or a bad mattress. It just means they do not rise to the level of meeting the requirements to be a trusted member here at TMU. Consequently, there are some companies that are transparent and are not members.

You are absolutely correct to want to try a mattress before you buy it. It is the best way to eliminate what you know you absolutely do not like, and that is half the battle. Remember, testing a mattress for 10,20, 30 minutes or more, still, does not guarantee a successful choice.

Charles P Rogers uses premium materials in their beds. They were very well known in the 70’s and 80’s for their brass beds that were so popular during that time period.

At some point you will have to take all the compiled puzzle pieces and place them together, utilizing all the information you have gathered thus far and take that leap of faith and make a choice.

Wishing you the best of luck and always happy to answer any questions you might have.
Norm

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Hi, punkrockrosebud, welcome to TMU. @Maverick mentioned us as an option, so I wanted to chime in, especially with Naturepedic. Since you have some preferences regarding latex, I wanted to mention that any layer of latex in the Naturepedic EOS mattress or EOS Pillowtop can be swapped out for coils to make that layer and/or the mattress latex-free, or lessen the number of latex layers. As Norm mentioned, you can swap out the layers after purchase also if something is not working.

Our staff is happy to talk with you by phone; they all have much experience with mattresses and the various brands. We also have a showroom under the Healthy Choice name in Summit, NJ, a little ways north of Allentown, towards NYC, if you get up that far. That showroom has the EOS there to try out.

Good luck, and I hope you find the right mattress that works well for you.
Katie for TCB

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@TheCleanBedroom
Katie thanks for elaborating on this, great information.
Norm

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