Where should I buy a bed?

[sylvar]

I'm looking to buy a bed -- mattress, foundation, and frame, OR mattress and platform. I want to get decent quality and a good price. I want to be able to go to the store and lay down on a mattress for 10-15 minutes without being made to feel that I'm wasting anyone's time or being weird.

Any suggestions as to chains, particular locations, etc.?

Comments

[gardenwaltz.livejournal.com]

Original Mattress Factory - Glenwood Ave, Raleigh, NC

They make all of their mattresses in-house which gives you an amazing quality/price ratio as the shipping costs are greatly reduced. They are also genuinely friendly and will let you take a quick nap.

...so, you didn't specify an area... maybe if Jodi's GRE & grad apps go well you could wait until you move up here :).

[sylvar.livejournal.com]

I like that idea. :)

[gaycowboys.livejournal.com]

This is probably not what you're looking for.. as you can't try the bed, but I had great luck with http://www.tampa-discount-mattress.com/. We got a barely used brand name (started with an S, don't remember) King mattress, delivered within a day for about $100. They are very nice people. (oh, and they mostly sell new mattresses).

[sylvar.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Actually, it looks like we could lay the mattress down and check it out that way. I'll check 'em out. Thanks!

[heathrow.livejournal.com]

I've heard raves from many people about the Original Mattress Factory. They're a chain.

[sylvar.livejournal.com]

OK, I'll look for 'em. Thank you!

My bed-buying strategies

[pappy74.livejournal.com]

First of all, I went to a ton of different places. You never know who's going to have a 'sale' that day/week, so it's worth it. I ended up getting my mattress from a place that happened to have a 'friends and family' deal that day.

Another thing that worked very well for me, I asked the sales dude from each place for semi-firm mattresses, and told him to leave me alone. I then lay down on each for a bit. I knew I had my mattress when I picked the same* mattress in 4 different places.

*In case you don't know how it works, a particular mattress has many different names, depending on where you shop. But they're all the same. Look for features like firmness, pillow-top or not, and coil count.

One other hint. Many dealers will allow you to mis-match mattress and boxspring and give you a significant discount. They'll tell you it voids the warantee, and perhaps it does, but those warantee's are fairly useless anyway (very tough to prove any problem was a manufacturer defect).

Good luck!