Did DreamCloud Perfect the Bed-in-a-Box?

Disclosure

We recently upgraded our mattress. And it was about time as our old one, while still in like-new condition, was over 20 years old. So if it was in such great shape, why did I feel the need to go to the expense of getting a replacement? Short version – I wanted to sleep better. Long version – keep reading.

In the mid 90’s we moved to California to take a new position at a growing company. After living there for a little over a year, we attended a travelling auction and vastly overpaid for a new bed frame. Up until now we had survived on my post-college waterbed and our apartment complex wasn’t wild about having them. We bought the auctioneer’s spiel hook, line and sinker and plunked down nearly $3,000 for a hand-carved mahogany California King four-post bed. To this day I don’t know if I was actually bidding against a real person or being swindled by a ghost bidder. Either way, I was the semi-proud new owner of a very expensive piece of wood.

I was working around 65 hours a week and really didn’t have the time to visit local mattress stores. Plus I wasn’t a fan of their selling process. They all advertised that they would match competitor’s prices, but a little-known secret of the mattress world kept this from actually being implemented. Each chain of stores would custom-order their mattresses from the manufacturer and have their own product name applied. While you might be comparing Sealy mattresses from one store to another, and they looked nearly identical, they would have completely different names. One might be SuperPlushSleepWell while the other store would feature SleepWellExtreme. Same mattress, different names, so no one had to honor their guarantee. This bothered me.

So I asked Nicole to go pick one out.

In my defense, her comfort was most important anyhow. If she didn’t sleep well, then I wouldn’t sleep well (remember that guys, the mattress commercials don’t mention that). Nicole’s always been very good at getting the best value for her dollar and she picked out one that suited her. It was advertised as a plush model, but didn’t have a pillow top. Matching box springs and a 15 year guarantee were included and it set us back nearly $1,000. I guess you could say they were right in the middle of the price range of mattresses at that time.

But right away I wasn’t comfortable. And this was during a time before in-home guarantees, meaning I’d have to load it up and lug it back to the store myself. I wrote it off as being a result of sleeping on a waterbed for so long and that I’d eventually get used to it. But I didn’t. We bought a mattress cover. Then a padded mattress cover. We were one of the first to buy memory foam as an extra topper (this was when all you got was a piece of memory foam, nothing else). That was upgraded to a sealed memory foam topper at some point. Now the sheets hardly fit because of all the extra add-ons.

Fast-forward to 20+ years later and I have had enough. When we bought the original, mattress technology really hadn’t changed in decades. Now you can not only buy memory foam mattress toppers, you can get entire mattresses made from the stuff! But I was worried that they would be too soft. This was my experience when I laid on one at our local wholesale club. It was soft and a good price, but there was no support. Plus I know from my mattress topper that they seem to store heat. So much so that we didn’t use the topper in the summer.

While in the middle of our search we discovered a new company, DreamCloud, that seemed to have the solution to our problem. They manufacture a mattress made from eight layers, not just a chunk of memory foam. Plus it is topped with a cashmere-blend fabric that should help combat the heat issues we’ve experienced from other memory foam products. This mattress would become our replacement choice.

The entire purchase process was very different than our last experience. A quick online order and a little over a week later it arrived at our house. We didn’t have to schedule a delivery appointment with a local company (like buying a mattress in a store). This DreamCloud mattress came to us by FedEx! I have to admit, the driver didn’t seem too happy to be delivering such a large, heavy package, but since I happened to be home when he arrived, I helped him get it off his dolly and into our house. I could understand his displeasure – this thing is heavy! Which makes sense – memory foam itself is denser than cotton or polyester, the materials usually used to manufacture mattresses. It looked like I was getting my money’s worth!

Getting the DreamCloud mattress up our stairs into the bedroom was another task in itself. Make sure you move it while it is still ‘deflated’ in the original package, as moving the mattress after unpacking would be much more difficult. Because of the design of our bed, we elected to keep our old box springs underneath and unpacked the mattress right in place. This type of mattress is vacuum-sealed and will expand a LOT once opened. This process of expanding takes a few hours.

The final results are amazing. In all honesty, I didn’t expect the mattress to look as nice as the professional product photos on their website. But it does. The workmanship is far superior to our old mattress and reminds us of something we’d see in a five-star hotel. Looks are one thing, and since it’ll be covered up by sheets and a blanket, aren’t as important as how it sleeps. And I’m happy to report that the DreamCloud mattress performs there also. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t be hearing about it from us.

The very first night I noticed I slept deeper. Deeper than I had in a LONG time. I was conscious of the fact I was on a new mattress, so I did still wake up a lot. But that went away after a couple nights of getting used to it and the excitement of having a new mattress waned. It wasn’t too soft, but certainly a lot more comfortable than our previous mattress. DreamCloud advertises that their mattress has been “Designed to offer the perfect balance of contouring comfort and pushback support. Recommended if you sleep on your side, back or stomach.” I do chuckle at that last part – what other ways are there to sleep? Upside-down?

So why did we choose DreamCloud over the myriad of other manufacturers out there? One of the main deciding factors was they offer an amazing 365-night sleep trial, something I wish we would have had 20 years ago. If for any reason we decide that this is not the mattress for us (including testing it out through a hot summer), they will remove the mattress from our home and refund the payment. This is more than three times longer than any other mattress supplier that we found.

We also love the fact that DreamCloud’s warranty is for as long as we own the mattress. While we don’t expect any wear issues since we always cover our mattresses with a cover (and our last one lasted so long), it is good to know we won’t have an expense in the future if we discover something went wrong during manufacturing. They even offer a professional cleaning service to help keep the cashmere-blend top looking like new as an extra service!

If you’re shopping for a mattress and checking out all the so-called mattress review sites, please know that there is no way to honestly and professionally compare all the mattress offering out there. Only you can be the judge of what is best FOR YOU. With DreamCloud’s one year trial and easy returns if you’re not happy, you have nothing to lose by trying them out. In fact, right now you can save $200 on your purchase! We will definitely not be returning ours since I’m sleeping better than ever.

Aren’t you due for a mattress upgrade?