I need to sleep on it.

I just dropped $1500 on a new mattress, sight unseen and untouched, from Sleep Ez Factory on the web.  Am I crazy? It’s a lot of coin to be sure and comparable to what one might spend on a top of the line store-bought standard innerspring.  But this is a 100% natural all-latex, assemble-it-yourself mattress.  This should be interesting.

My wife and I have been thinking about replacing our aging innerspring for a while - it’s over 10 years old now.  I have been reading about latex mattresses on the web, researching the different types of latex, processes, and prices.  Note that I am talking about natural latex from a rubber tree, processed and formed into ~3″ layers of varying firmness, that when stacked three high and covered with a cotton casing make a mattress.  This is not the same as the synthetic memory foam products like Tempur-pedic.

Again, the most interesting thing about this type of mattress is not necessarily what it is made out of, but that it comes as a kit.  Each mattress layer comes in a box, rolled up and shrink wrapped.  To assemble it, you lay the casing (which zips closed around the latex layers) on the platform, foundation, or box spring, and then stack each layer of latex, one on top of the other.  Then the casing is zipped up and voila - a mattress!  The beauty of this system is that you can create a totally different feel for each side of the bed, by simply selecting different firmness layers.  In our case, we are going with a single ’soft’ layer that will be on top, then individual ‘medium’ layers  in the middle, and individual ‘firm’ layers on the bottom.  With this configuration, we can try out soft-med-firm, or soft-firm-firm, or soft-med-med.  We can then easily exchange the layers with the factory to create a completely custom mattress.  To me, this seems like a much more effective way of customizing the sleep surface, compared to the inflatable air-based systems like the Sleep Number.   It’s also worth noting that pure latex mattresses last upwards of 20 years, and again unlike the air bladder systems, there is nothing to break.

Update:  I received and assembled our new mattress.  I created a separate page dedicated to this product, with lots of pictures and more detailed information.  Click here to go there now!