Thanks so much Phoenix for the comprehensive information provided within The Mattress Underground website. I have learned a great deal about differences in mattress construction, materials, manufacturing techniques, dealers, and so much more. My husband and I have extremely differing levels of comfort when it comes to mattress firmness. He suffers from a back injury incurred many years ago and seems to sleep better on a very firm mattress. I am terribly uncomfortable on the extra firm mattress we presently use and sleep with a 2" Tempurpedic topper on my side of our queen size mattress. We hate sleeping on different levels as cuddling in the middle of the bed is something we like to do on and off during the night. My husband tried to sleep on the topper but was in severe pain, barely able to move during the day after sleeping on this type of foam. We are both side-sleepers, and I sleep on my stomach a bit during the night as well or at least try to do so. I have hip pain when I sleep from the pressure of my mattress which feels too firm even with the topper. So after due diligence and research of your website, we decided to look into the natural latex mattresses with split configuration.
Thursday, Jan 29th, we drove about 80 miles to visit three of your recommended dealers in southern California. We first visited the Berkeleyergo showroom in Ontario. We arrived promptly when they opened and were treated rather poorly by the owner. He was not pleased to see us and let us know that we had come at a bad time. He stated that he was not a showroom for the public but a manufacturer (even though beds were set up in the showroom), that he had a supplier coming (though no one was there at that time), and that he didn’t have enough staff to help us. He asked us if we had come very far and we told him where we had come from, handed me a business card and said that perhaps we could come some other time. To be fair, everyone can have an off day now and then but customer service was non-existent at this place of business. We will not consider purchasing any product of this manufacturer.
Our next stop was at Flexus, where we were treated well by James the owner. He was gracious, friendly, and informative. James knew his product and allowed us to try differing layers of Talalay and Dunlop latex, changing my husbands side of the bed with firm lower levels, and my side with medium. The lower, split layers were Dunlop and the top layer was a soft Talalay, single piece covering the entire bed surface. Their product is of excellent quality and the entire experience was incredibly positive. Prices were much better than what I have research for comparable products on the internet and of course they figure in an additional discount of 5% if you mention the Mattress Underground website. At this time we are considering this bed for purchase but still want to try out a few more mattresses for comparison.
Our third stop was at the Foam Sweet Foam showroom in Anaheim, which unfortunately was closed and appears to only be open on Monday, Friday, and Saturday. This establishment appears to offer the split husband/wife layers within the mattress but primarily in Talalay latex only and according to their website, they charge extra for each layer with a split configuration which adds several hundred dollars to the base price. Ouch!
So, we hope to return to Foam Sweet Foam and are trying to find another manufacturer that offers the split configuration in a Queen natural latex bed. We are trying to keep the price under $2000 including foundation and that is proving to be a challenge. The retailers/manufacturers we have contacted on the internet are asking about $2500 to $4400 which is beyond our budget. Flexus has offered out the door price of $1840 for a 10" mattress with split configuration including two 3" layers of Dunlop latex, and another 3" layer of Talalay latex for the top. This price includes the foundation which seems like a great buy if the bed will work for us. If a layer needs to be returned, they will exchange it for a softer or firmer one at no cost if we bring it back and a minimal shipping charge if we need to ship it.
So, hopefully we will be able to do a bit more comparative shopping and actually try out a few more mattresses. Thanks so much for your help. We have moved past the notion of purchasing a Sleep-Number bed which was the only solution we could think of to our differences in comfort levels and I believe are on our way to a much better sleep solution.