Ran an experiment last night to just remove the fitted sheet and sleep on a flat sheet instead (eliminated the sheets as the primary issue). It was definitely improved but not nearly as good as it was before. Still feeling some pressure point issues on the hip and shoulder and my wife mentioned the same thing as well with her shoulder. Tonight I’ll try to unzip the top of the mattress cover in an effort to eliminiate cover thickness, layer precompression and tension as issues causing the problem. Thank the heavens for that massage gun, makes a world of difference using it just a few minutes every morning and night before I go to bed.
Last night I tried unzipping the top of the mattress cover and it helped my wife but me not as much. I double checked the layer height and it should be the exact same as what Flobeds uses for their Big & Tall mattress but never seen it in person so hard to say if layer height is actually identical (see below for comparison). Going to try the Purple cover tonight over the top and see if that improves things for me at all.
Big & Tall
2" Comfort layer
1" Coir
3" V-zone layer
3" support layer
3" support layer
3" support layer
Mine
2" comfort layer
2" comfort layer
3" V-zone Layer
2" support layer
6" Air Chambers
I worked a bit more on the mattress this weekend trying various combinations to see what worked and what didn’t in an effort to get the solution narrowed down. I also got a chance to make changes to the V-zone layer to better tailor it for my needs and I definitely did make more progress. Funny how my side and my wife’s V-zone are looking much more similar at this point.
Here’s the new V-zones for each side after doing some testing for what felt best:
So we tried the Purple cover over the top of the layers (left the Flobeds cover bottom under the mattress) to see if it was better and it definitely felt much better. I also looked at a video of a Flobeds mattress being built to verify the height of my egg crate comfort layer versus and from what I could tell it was the same height. It continued to bother me that lots of other people found the Flobeds cover very comfortable yet I was having issues so I tried it again after adjusting the latex layers and it did feel better. It’s stretchy too and I think there’s likely also a break in period on it (since it has wool inside) so I probably should have taken that into account as well. We slept on the Flobeds cover again and it definitely felt much better than before but the Purple cover is extremely stretchy and thinner (you feel a bit of the eggcrate foam which is nice and body parts travel easier into the mattress) so my wife and I both really liked that feel over the top. After all this I think I may ask Flobeds if they will sell me a zipper so I can try sewing it to the Purple cover to attach a more stretchy top for the mattress cover. The last part is that I haven’t really done much with the 2" support layer below the V-zone section and after trying both sides I think that’s where I may focus next (going to get a 2" talalay 28ILD and 32ILD to try). I may even resort to zoning that layer too if needed (not sure if this would change the V-zone layer combo too) but will see when I get the layers. Overall way closer than before and much less pain in the morning so that part has been great.
So I did a bunch more work on my mattress this weekend and I was definitely able to make some progress. I needed more softness in the shoulder/legs area so I got a another 2" piece of 28T to try in the support layer. It was better but I was still having issues with misalignment in the hip so I decided to try zoning the area under my torso with the 36T (with 28T everywhere else) to see if it would help. I was finally able to use my foam saw and it worked awesome but it felt like I corrected a bit too far in the other direction (still misalignment). So what I decided was to take my entire side of the mattress (just the latex foams) and try it straight on the wood floor to verify the alignment and eliminate any variables. I figured now was the time to pull out all the stops and tweak the v-zone layer too (since I had all the pieces) so I went a bit less stiff in the torso (since it was now zoned in the support layer too) and more stiff under the hips so the alignment felt good. That seemed to be the sweet spot so I remade the bed with that and then put the purple mattress cover bottom between the air chambers and the latex layers above. This allowed me to zip the purple cover around all the layers then easily put on the top sheet and it really felt great finally. The last step was to pump the air chamber on my side up to 100 (still like the floor) and it worked fantastic. I was finally able to get a decent night’s sleep again without any discomfort. I’m a bit leary about declaring victory at this point but it’s a huge improvement overall. Going to try this setup for a bit and if it looks like it’s a winner I’ll look at how I want to attach the Purple top cover to the Flobed bottom cover (unfortunately Flobed will not sell the zipper separately, I asked).
Here’s the current config for the v-zone layers (mine and hers) after the tweaks on my side:
I spent a bunch of time this weekend testing because quite frankly I was tired of being in pain. I toiled many hours trying out just about every combination you could think of and making small changes each time (along with taking copious notes about what felt better/worse) so that I could go back to ones that got closest and explore them more. Each of the combos took quite a few minutes because I had to remake the mattress layers again and then test it for at least 10-15 minutes. I even tried some sections of SOL latex in the v-zone and it did make a difference but in the end the all talalay setup still felt best. Interestingly I think part of the issue was that my shoulders were actually sinking in too far which was causing some misalignment down in the lower back/hips if you can believe it. After this new setup I’ve been sleeping fantastic and doing alot of stretches/exercises to help with the SI joint issue. The pain has melted away after only a few days and it feels great to be finally past the hump on this project. I have been playing around a bit with the Sleep Number settings on the air chambers to see if I can get any further improvement (right now I have it set to 60) but very very happy with it all now.
Here’s my final combo at this point (my wife’s still hasn’t changed at all):
I still need to work on the mattress cover but for now it’s been working great to just use Flobeds bottom cover to surround the air chambers (I tucked the lose ends around the edges of the foam) and I used the purple mattress cover to go around the 4 layers of foam. This makes it easy to get sheets on and doesn’t add any extra tension to the sleeping surface.
Remind me again how you ended up with sleep number as the foundation? Kind of crazy.
Yeah this setup has been quite an engineering exercise but I’ve never been one to only color within the lines so no surprise most people consider what I do pretty crazy. Early on in my DIY journey I was of the idea that springs (hybrid design) would work best since, like most people, I’d been sleeping on spring mattress designs for most of my life. So determined to get some value from my bad big box store purchase I first tried to just rebuild my BeautyRest by keeping the original springs. When that didn’t work I decided to try getting another Leggett & Platt spring layer from APM and combine that with the SOL latex layers I had already (but unfortunately I didn’t really know about dunlop/talalay latex difference at that point). When we couldn’t get that to work either I decided to look at maybe buying a Sleep Number bed (since I had an old air mattress that I had been using in the interim which felt really good). I thought about it again and decided what I really wanted was just the adjustable base to add to my design. So I went on eBay and bought all the SN parts to make it work (all used stuff except for the edge foams) for a tiny fraction of what a new SN mattress would cost. When I tried the SN base in the design my wife ended up loving the feeling she got sinking into the mattress so I knew we had to keep it. The problem was that the air mattress design did have some alignment drawbacks (ie it hammocks on softer settings and can also cause upper back alignment issues). The benefits of full adjustability were just too good to pass up so knowing this I decided to start using it as a base for our mattress and then worked on the design to correct the alignment and make it really work for us. Now my combination of weight, body shape and injury (from the darn BeautyRest mattress) might have made that job quite a bit harder to solve than it would be for most people (my wife found her perfect combo well before I did) but obviously no matter how difficult the situation it definitely can be done. At this point I’m super happy with how it all turned out and now we have a design that’s WAY more customizable than anything you could possibly buy off the shelf.
I figured I’d throw an update on this since I haven’t posted much in a bit but overall this DIY mattress has been the most comfortable I’ve ever slept on!!! It has actually gotten better with time instead of worse as store bought mattresses often did as they broke in. I now have zero shoulder, hip or back pain anymore and I haven’t had to make any more adjustments to either the latex layers or the airbed setitngs since my last post. I’ve been using the Purple mattress cover on the latex layers and it works great while the flobeds bottom portion of the cover is used only on the airbed part. It took me a little bit to figure out how to make the bed so the airbed base didn’t show from under the duvet, but I finally figured out the technique and now all is good. This story is quite the saga when you read it from the beginning but hopefully I can save others some headache and money from some of the mistakes and lessons I learned along the way.
Wow. What a journey you’ve been on. Could you please elaborate more on the purchase and use of the Sleep number. Did you just purchase the bladder of SN and use that in lieu of the coil foundation or firm base layer? Did you place that on top of box springs? What exactly did you purchase from eBay to make this work. Is the king size really 2 twin xl air bladders. Did you have to purchase the controls. I feel this build would be what I really need but would love a break down if you wouldn’t mind.
Thank you
Hi Matt,
Your mattress must be working great, giving you no reason to come back to Mattress Underground, but just in case you check in occasionally:
Thank you so much for this extensive documentation of a DIY journey. I think this should be pinned to the top of the DIY forum and required reading!
I truly had burning questions in my mind and was looking forward to updates as I read the saga. 
I was really surprised you decided to order the FloBeds cover… and then not surprised when it ultimately didn’t work out. It is so bizarre to me that almost every single (all) latex mattress I’ve seen uses these quilted covers. They are just way too stiff and completely obscure the feel of the foam and its ability to conform. (It took me way too long to accept that, even though I suspected it was a primary problem with our mattress.) I have searched high and low for an encasement with quilted/firm sides/bottom (to keep the layers from shifting) and a stretchy top to no avail. It’s baffling.
I ended up on this thread when I read a comment of yours on another post about messing around with SOL Dunlop for too long before realizing what a difference Talalay made. I came over here hoping for further explanation of that, but I didn’t really find it. I’m very familiar with the general difference in how they’re manufactured and perform/compress, but I was hoping for some very specific notes about the difference making the switch made. But it seems like in one post you’re calculating complex performance data and sleeping on all Dunlop, and the next one with full mattress specs you’re on all Talalay. If you remember any of the reasons you decided to make the switch or notes on the difference, I’d be so grateful to hear them.
I assume you completely skipped the HD polyfoam and memory foam experiments? I really, really miss the motion isolation of our memory foam mattress, so have been thinking about a 1.5" soft convoluted latex (Dunlop for now, because I found one for $135, versus $579 for FloBeds 2" Talalay convoluted–seems worth a try), over 1 or 2 inches of memory or gel (viscoelastic foam of some sort), over more latex comfort laters (probably 2 x 2") and latex support layers. (Currently on five year old mattress, 3" x 4 layers, 1x 22T over 3 x 28D. I have no idea why I thought a construction this simple would ever work for me.)
Anyway, I hope you are sleeping like a baby and pain free and not thinking about this stuff anymore, but your journey and documentation was such a wealth of information that I figured it was worth a try asking for just a few more details.
Take care,
Caroline
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