Parklane Mattress Recommendations?

First, thanks so much for providing this forum. It really is a great service to read peoples opinions, questions, and ultimately, what they choose to purchase.

We live in Oregon (specifically, Corvallis). We’re about 90 miles from Portland, so our obvious choice of where to purchase our mattress is from Parklane. We have a king sleigh bed, and currently sleep on a Costco-purchased innerspring mattress almost 10 years old.

For our new mattress, our main criteria are minimum motion transfer (I’m a light sleeper), minimum heat retention (for my wife), and medium to high firmness (both of us).

We’ll obviously need to do our own evaluation of their various models, but I thought I would start by asking folks for their opinions and experiences:

  1. Are there particular Parklane models that people feel would meet our criteria?

  2. What specific Parklane models have folks purchased in the past, and what do you think of your choice?

  3. My assumption is that we would likely pick one of their memory foam or latex models, but I see that they have several innerspring models as well. Any comments about these vs. foam or latex?

  4. Does Parklane have a “factory outlet”, in the sense that they sell cosmetic defect models or customer returns at a reduced price?

Thanks very much.

Hi Bruzer,

I would be very cautious about using other people’s experiences as a guideline because each person will have their own needs and preferences in terms of PPP and a mattress that is “perfect” for one person may be completely unsuitable for someone else to sleep on (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here).

The best way to find out which types of mattresses you tend to prefer and that work best for you would be based on your own careful and objective testing using the testing guidelines that are linked in the mattress shopping tutorial.

There is also more about the many variables that can affect sleeping temperature in post #2 here that you can also use as a guideline as well.

Again I would treat the type of materials in your mattress as a personal preference issue rather than a “better worse” issue and I would use your testing to decide which type of mattresses you tend to do best with. Memory foam and latex are also very different “animals” and there is more about the differences between them in post #2 here. There is also more about the most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase in post #13 here but in most cases all the mattresses that are made by the same manufacturer would have a similar “commodity value” based on the cost of the materials and components inside them (although mattresses in a higher budget range will often have a little bit higher margins).

I believe that they closed their outlet store some time ago (see this post).

I’m looking forward to your feedback after your visit.

Phoenix

Hi Phoenix -

Thanks for the feedback and the links. We definitely have our work cut out for us as we narrow down our choices among the models that they offer. Based on comments that I’ve read on this forum from folks that have dealt with Parklane, I expect they will be very knowledgeable about their products and should give us good guidance.

I have to admit that it’s difficult to not develop some preconceived ideas about what mattress types we “should” consider, as opposed to being open to all available types. I think if we are upfront about what our criteria is, plus spend the necessary time doing our evaluations, we should be OK.

That’s too bad about the closing of their outlet. I’ll ask them how they deal with mattresses that are returned by customers within their 90-night comfort guarantee.

Bruzer

Hi Bruzer,

Yes … you will find they are much more knowledgeable, helpful, and informative than the typical “chain store” that most people are used to and will focus more on “educating” you than just “selling” you.

If you do some careful and objective testing along with asking good questions you should certainly be OK. In most cases the preconceived ideas that people have about mattresses comes from “marketing” information they are exposed to which is often very misleading and may have little to do with what actually works best for each individual person or what they may actually prefer in “real life”. Your body will tell you much more about which types of mattresses you tend to prefer and are a better “match” for you in terms of PPP than most of the “theoretical” or “marketing” information that most people are exposed to when they are looking for a mattress.

Phoenix