Hi everyone,
I stumbled on this forum while I was debating whether or not to attempt a mattress surgery on my old queen-sized pillowtop mattress, which is just shy of 15 years old. The pillowtop has been sagging for some time, and was starting to cause persistent pain my my lower back on the left side. I thought cutting out the old pillowtop would be possible but I was nervous about going in clueless so I started searching around online. It led me to this thread, which I found very helpful so I decided to move ahead.
I decided on mattress surgery rather than an entirely new mattress mostly for budget reasons. I have at least 2 large (expensive) home renovation projects that need to happen in the next 6-12 months, so I was trying to keep costs low.
I knew that I would need a new mattress topper to replace the old pillowtop, so I ordered a Sleep-On-Latex 3" medium topper. The original pillowtop was probably 3.5 - 4", so I wanted something of approximately the same thickness.
This is the label from the mattress I was starting with:
It’s called “Sleep Dimensions”, but the logo underneath the words “Made By” is cut off, so I don’t know the original brand. I’d be curious to know if anyone recognizes it.
The label calls it a “Euro Pillow Top”, which is slightly confusing based on my research. Eurotops seems to be different from pillowtops, but as far as I can tell from my very untrained eye, this mattress was constructed more like a pillowtop with a separate compartment holding the foam top. Here is a view from the side before I cut anything open:
I carefully opened up the tape edge along the top so that I’d have the option to reuse the compartment to hold the new mattress topper. That ultimately didn’t happen for a couple of reasons, which I explain below. I started by carefully picking out the stitches on the bottom of the tape edge around one of the corners, and then once the tape started to loosen up enough I was able to cut the stitches from the top of the tape edge more quickly.
The corners were by far the most difficult to get out, and it probably took about 3 hours to work all the way around (it didn’t help that I snapped my seam ripper about 3/4 of the way around the mattress!)
Once opened up, I could see that the pillowtop was just a single slab of yellow foam underneath the quilted top layer.
I realized at this point that the quilted top was actually glued to the foam pillowtop, so I let go of any consideration of reusing it, since it would have been too much of a mess to try to separate it from the pillowtop.
I did peel the quilt top back a little to take a peek, and it showed that the edges of the pillowtop had significantly discolored over the years:
My next step was to remove the pillowtop from the mattress itself. I was originally imagining that I’d be able to just slide it off, but this was also glued on. Thankfully it was only glued strongly in the corners, and less strongly along the edges of the mattress, but not in the middle, so it only took about 15-20 minutes to use a utility knife to slice away the bottom of the foam from where it was glued.
I was hoping that once the pillowtop was off, I’d be able to discern how the mattress itself is constructed, but I’m still not sure. I assume(ed) there were springs inside, but all I could really feel was another layer of foam under the fabric layer that made up the bottom of the pillowtop casing. I considered cutting off the fabric layer altogether but I was too worried I’d do more harm than good. The sides of the mattress are also encased in some type of foam.
The removal of the pillowtop left behind a sticky residue around the perimeter of the bed and I didn’t really want to put my new mattress topper on and get it all sticky. Instead of reusing the fabric sides of the pillowtop, I folded them and ironed them down to coverup most of the sticky residue.
However, I also noticed that the center of the actual mattress was sagging (so it wasn’t just the pillowtop that was sagging). I checked the condition of the bottom of the mattress and found that it was constructed identically to the top (a layer of foam held in by a piece of fabric). The only difference is that it wasn’t sagging, so I flipped the mattress over to have a level surface to work with.
Before putting on my new mattress topper, I measured the mattress because I was curious if the dimensions were a true 60x80", and it measured in at about 59.5x79.5". This means that the new topper slightly overhangs the edges of the mattress. Here is is just after I rolled it out:
The overhang isn’t too much of a problem. My mattress protector and fitted sheet are doing a good job of holding it on, and it didn’t slide around during my first night of using it.
This was an interesting project, and although I’m sure I’ll need an actual new mattress someday, I’m hoping this will help extend the life of the mattress for a while longer. Last night was my first night using the new mattress topper, and I actually woke up feeling great without an ache in my lower back. I really appreciate all of the information that’s available on this forum. I’ll start reading more so I can plan ahead for my next mattress purchase.
