The visit to Lapensee was worthwhile though we ended up choosing something else. Our favourite was the Double Semi-Firm Comfort Royal, which is a fairly conventional pocket coil mattress. It has some variety of fancy wicking fabric for the ticking, I believe they said 2 lb HD polyfoam for the topper, and then a honeycomb arrangement pocket coil core, and is double-sided. It was pretty comfortable, reasonably priced ($1000), and the lead time seemed very quick (under 2 weeks). The shoulder area was a touch hard for both of us, so we weren’t ready to order.
We had visited the Orleans showroom because the location was better for us, but the factory floor is at the Gatineau location. This meant that when the salesperson was not able to answer the question about softening up the shoulder area, he sensibly wanted to refer it to the production staff, but they were all on holiday and will be for a while yet. My own schedule means that the shopping had to be done before I have to go back to work.
Having managed to borrow a car for a day, today we went to more showrooms. First stop was IKEA primarily because they are affordable and have several close variations to let us compare feel between constructions. They also have an X-ray vision wall of cut-through samples clearly labelled with materials. This made it clear that I like latex and pocket coils for the lively feel and responsiveness, while polyfoams have a somewhat dead feel by comparison. I’m not sure I’d buy a mattress at IKEA, but it’s a good place to do mattress type testing!
We tried to go check out MFC, but it turns out to be online sales only, no showroom. This was not obvious on the website – the address given there is on Boul. St-Joseph, which is a major commercial corridor, so it was reasonable to think there was a showroom.
We were running late and decided to head to Matelas Dauphin because we had not checked them out before and they were having a 50% off Boxing Day sale. The location was a little hard to find from the address and from the north – it’s a multi-building strip mall, and while the address is on Greber, the storefront is on Maloney.
Dauphin has a reasonable variety of mattresses, mostly single-sided. I’m not too fussed about that in this case. Since we want to upgrade in size some years down the road, something that’s very comfortable for 10 years is a better bargain than something pretty comfortable for 20. We tried on about 5 different models, focusing on part-latex and all-latex, since the sale was putting them in reach of our budget. It came down to the Albizia or the Ceiba. We inquired about the construction of each of them before deciding, to clear up what weak links there might be. Here’s what the salesperson (who was attentive and helpful) said:
Ceiba: pocket coil core (same in each), latex comfort layer (website says all-natural Talalay), organic cotton ticking with wool quilt. This list matches the pricing pretty well, which was $1900-ish regular and $950 sale. If the Albizia had not seduced us, we would have bought this and been very happy with it. Moderately plush and very supportive underneath that. It was almost as comfortable as what we tried on at Obasan, at a fraction of the price. (The all-latex Euphoria was significantly more costly and less plush, even in its plush variant.)
Albizia: pocket coil core (same in each), latex comfort layer (website says all-natural Talalay), super plush foam, bamboo ticking with wool quilt. Pricing $2600-ish regular and $1300-ish sale. It felt heavenly and had really good posture alignment for both of us, and the price gap was around the same as an extra latex topper for the Ceiba would have been, so less work and option to test before purchase won.
We ordered the Albizia. It should arrive soon after my birthday. The super-plush foam part was a bit mysterious, but I think I have figured it out. The salesperson said it was bio aloe-infused foam. Next to it was a rack of Blu Sleep foam pillows, including an aloe-infused flavour. It seems very probable that Dauphin, being Quebec-based, bought this fancy foam from Blu Sleep’s Quebec office. It’s Oeko-tex certified natural memory foam with extra marketing, basically. Other parts of the site say it’s made in Italy, and a 2" double topper of it retails for around $500. This would explain the price and feel gaps very neatly.
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Other details: the salesperson was kind enough to not upsell us on a new foundation, and instead suggested how to modify what we have. (Unbolt slats, bolt on plywood skin.) There’s a 120 day comfort exchange, and they were up-front about the $75 fee for the extra delivery/pickup involved. 20 year warranty, 10 full 10 pro-rated. They also were clear on the expected delivery period, and can offer some flexibility to ensure someone can be home. If the old mattress still has life, they can take it to a charity for a small fee ($10?) We were also able to pay a deposit rather than the full amount, and we can settle the rest before delivery, which is in 3 weeks starting next week. So they were generally very nice to deal with and did not pressure us, despite a situation where it would have been easy to.
Of the local concerns (Obasan/Sleeptek, Lapensee, Dauphin), all were pleasant to deal with and had good products. Obasan is firmly aimed at the premium market but was very educational. Since Lapensee does double-sided mattresses, they would be better for someone looking for a very long-lived mattress. Dauphin’s value proposition for us during the sale was very good since it opened up upgrades in feel and quality, with little real downside. I can’t speak to what we would have chosen without the sale – it would probably have depended on what the affordable models had felt like and who was able/willing to tweak the feel within our budget constraints.