Hi All…
Sorry I have been MIA for a bit, but I did finally order and receive my Spindle latex mattress.
This post explains how I single handedly assembled my king size latex Spindle mattress and lived to tell the story.
First, let me say that Neal was great to work with from start to end. I went to his showroom in Acton, MA, which typically closes at 5:00PM. He stayed late for me since I didn’t leave until 5:45PM. While I was there, we tested many combinations of layers until I found a few possibilities. Each time, we had to reconfigure mattresses in his showroom, and he did so without any hesitation. He answered all my questions, and even after I left he was very responsive.
I decided to order a king size mattress with two layers of firm, natural latex and one layer of medium, synthetic latex. For those who had not seen my prior thread, I did this because the natural latex is more dense and provided what I feel is a better, more supportive experience when I was sitting up in bed (as I am now typing this) or sitting t the edge of the bed, which I do when I get dressed.
After Neal shipped my mattress, the weather people scheduled a big, cold, wet, snowy nor’easter storm to hit. By bad luck, I was not going to be home most of the day to receive the mattress and of course I didn’t want it sitting out in the storm. Neal rescheduled the delivery for me. UPS screwed up and delivered 4 of the 5 boxes, and Neal was able to deal with that as well.
Anyhow, the mattress and pillows I ordered arrived in 5 boxes. Three held the layers, another a pair of pillows and the last one held the cover. Each box easily went up my stairs, which is great, since a conventional king size mattress that can not bend would never have done that. Other foam mattresses that ship compressed would have fit up, but then been difficult to take out of the room after they expanded. The layers were folded twice but not compressed. Each came wrapped in sturdy, clear plastic and then inside a cardboard box. It was no great surprise that the more dense natural, firm latex was heavy. Each of those is 59 ponds. The medium, synthetic layer was only 37 pounds.
The first challenge was to open the boxes. They were taped up, and I did use a razor blade to cut the packing tape, but I was very careful not to let the blade into the box. The latex layers were bulging the boxes wide, so if the razor had moved inside the box even a slight bit, the latex would have been cut. Turns out, it was easy to open the boxes without harming the latex because I was careful.
Next, I laid the cover on the bed. This turned out to be a bit tricky actually. Its not obvious which side is the head, foot, left and right. A king size bed is nearly square, so getting that right was a bit of a challenge. I actually had to measure the seams with a measuring tape, and figure out which way to align it. Neal, if you’re reading this, perhaps some tags or markings inside the cover would be in order? The latex layers, on the other hand, have rows of holes and the holes vary in size to make the zoning work. This made it easy to see which way to put the layers down.
Next, the hardest part. The bottom layer has to go into the cover and align perfectly with the bottom of the cover. The cover is just slightly smaller than the latex layer, to keep it snug. So there I was, just me, with a 59 pound piece of latex that is spread out over the cover. There is plenty of friction between the latex layer and the cover, so its not going to slide. The instructions clearly warn against putting your fingers inside to try to drag it, and I followed that advice. The instructions suggested flicking the layer and other ways of moving it, but none were particularly useful for this first, bottom layer. Another problem was that the cover needed to be stretched tight to fit the layer, but when I spread it on my platform bed, the cover sank between the slats. You can’t step into the slats because your legs are too big to fit between, and once the bottom payer is in place it is very difficult to pull the cover tight, even from underneath.
I figured out the trick. I took the plastic the layer came wrapped in, spread it out over the cover, then put the layer on that. Now, the heavy layer slid nicely! I was able to align the bottom layer fairly easily and pull the cover tight, so there was no material dropping through the slats. Once the bottom later was perfectly aligned with the seams of the cover, it was easy to fold parts of the layer out of the way and tear the plastic away and out. So now, much more than half the battle was won.
The rest was relatively easy. The next layer went on top of the bottom layer and the tricks listed in Neal’s instructions worked fine. This means “flicking” the latex, but not pulling or tugging on it. It was very easy to flick the latex to move it away from you, not so much to move it toward you. So if you have a head board, consider flicking bit by bit toward the headboard since the headboard will make it hard to flick toward the foot of the bed. All the same notes apply to the third, and top, layer.
Finally, it was pretty easy to zip the cover up! And there I had it, my Spindle mattress, ready to go!
