Monday, 29 August 2011

Foam or Spring?

On average we spend a third of our time in the bedroom doing little but sleeping.  Space being at a premium means our bedroom is small.  However the bed is going to be reasonably large.  King size in the UK or Queen size if in Australia.  Even more importantly; it needs to be comfortable!

Many years ago during the first couple of weeks after leaving home, I slept on a slat bed with a paillasse for a mattress.  For those readers who don’t know what a paillasse is; it’s a canvas covered bag filled with straw.  We then received foam mattresses and I slept on one for the next six years.

When Jan and I married we purchased and inner spring mattress.  I didn’t mind it, but Jan thought it was too hard.  We then changed to a waterbed and have slept on one ever since.  The waterbed is warm and conforms to the shape of your body.  Now we need to think about the type of mattress we will want on Waiouru. 

We are having to be a cross-over bed which will preclude the selection of a waterbed.  Anyway, it would be too hard to heat.  We have to choose between inner spring or foam.  Our builder suggests the former, whilst I’m leaning towards a memory foam mattress.  I suspect they will be more like a waterbed and are probably cheaper.

However I’m open to other opinions or suggestions.  I also think Google with produce some “pro’s & con’s”!

4 comments :

Bruce in Sanity said...

Like you, we slept on a waterbed for a long time, and really missed it when we moved on board.

We have memory foam on SA, and it's the nearest you can get to a waterbed effect. But it's not cheap.

The cheap foam is just ordinary Dunlopillo or whatever and is OK, but not as good as either interior sprung or memory foam.

Cheers

Bruce

Peter Berry said...

Hi Tom, KL is fitted with a newish fully sprung mattress. The previous owner had replaced the original standard foam one in late 2008, just before we acquired her, for comfort reasons, although I find the sprung one quite firm. (We have just fitted it with a new mattress isolator as we left her at the weekend). Memory foam mattresses here seem to be just as expensive as the most expensive, quality sprung mattresses. A good compromise would seem to be a sprung mattress with a memory foam top, which are currently popular, and I know are very comfortable, as our daughter has one in her London apartment. The biggest thing to get used to for us was that KL has, as many narrowboats do, an in line 4 foot wide bed, where, on your own boat, you will have the option of a wider one by having the across the boat format. I suppose an option for additional comfort on KL would be to lay our occasional inflatable mattress on top of the sprung one, but I don't think I would bother;-)

Geoff and Mags said...

Hi Both
Just refitted the bedroom on Seyella, swapped a 4 foot in-line bed for a 41/2 foot cross bed. Ditched the old sprung mattress in favour of a foam one, and have not looked back! Ours is a sandwich, firm standard foam in the middle with memory foam on both sides. Having the MF on both sides means we can turn the mattress over regularly. The only downside is that it tends to be warmer than a hollow sprung base, OK for Mags, though!

Steve Jones said...

have you thought about Latex? Better than memory foam and more hygienic - no bed bugs!