Help me pick a mattress

November 6, 2009 6:19 PM

We're shopping for a new mattress and thinking about an Ikea mattress. Does anyone know how Ikea mattresses are compared to a brand name one like Sealy? Is there a difference in quality and/or price? We have to drive about 100 miles to get to an Ikea store vs 15 minutes for a Sleep America. Is it worth the trip?
posted by TorontoSandy to home & garden (28 answers total)

My take after shopping for mattresses about a year ago at Ikea and elsewhere was that the Ikea mattresses do not seem to be as well-made as a lot of the non-Ikea ones (the "S" brands, for example), and that once you factor in the fact that you have to find some way to lug the Ikea mattress to your house and get rid of the old one, the price difference is insignificant. I did not think any of the Ikea mattresses were as comfortable as the major-label mattress that I ended up with at a good price.
posted by The World Famous at 6:23 PM on November 6, 2009

Opinions on what constitutes a comfortable mattress vary widely from person to person, so I don't think any answer can be definitive. But here's anecdotal data:

I am very cheap. Cheap like an old New England yankee seventy years my senior. I'll pay for quality, but only if I'm convinced that it's a savings down the road or much, much better than what I can get for less.

18 months ago my wife and I were in the market for a mattress. IKEA was one of the first places we thought to look. We both agreed that the inexpensive IKEA mattresses were not very good, and that the good IKEA mattresses were not inexpensive. And even the two that we thought were relatively good were not really thrilling. I'm very positive on IKEA in general, but it is not a good place to buy a mattress.

Best bet is to hit the chains, find a mattress that you like and make an offer. We got our (excellent, excellent) mattress from one of the chains for about 33% off by haggling.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:40 PM on November 6, 2009

I just spent a few weeks sleeping on an Ikea mattress in Hungary. I wish I would have written down th exact name / model, as it turns out to have been about the most comfortable mattress I've ever slept on. I can only tell you that it was a bit "hard" and wasn't a boxed spring one - but I'll definitely be buying one like it soon.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 6:44 PM on November 6, 2009

I'm of the opinion that a mattress is something you're going to be spending (ideally) 8 hours a day on, so don't cheap out on it.

We have a Simmons Beautyrest (y'know, with the bowling ball ads) and have been very pleased with it. So much so that we realize how spoiled we are if we travel and have to sleep on a lesser mattress.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:53 PM on November 6, 2009

I have an Ikea mattress and base - I am not sure which one. Initially, it felt very comfortable (perhaps compared to the old futon) and would be fine for a guestroom if you were not wanting to spend much money. After maybe 18-24 months use, it is getting uncomfortable because there are dips where we sleep. It is also not very good at minimising 'partner disturbance' - I feel like I am being thrown in the air when my partner turns over. Also, it is one with a mattress base and then a thin mattress thing on top - the one on top is always sliding down towards the end of the bed and my pillows disappear into the gap at the head of the bed. This has to be adjusted every couple of days (pulling up both the sheet and mattress protector to do so).

I now want to buy a Sealy or similar, and imagine that although they are more expensive, I would be more comfortable and it would last a lot longer.
posted by AnnaRat at 6:54 PM on November 6, 2009

Whatever you do, haggle. If you have to get in a faux fight over it, with one of you wanting to buy and the other saying "no, it's too much", do. That's how we got free delivery! Of course, it was a real fight, but you can just fake it.
posted by kathrineg at 7:04 PM on November 6, 2009 [2 favorites]

From my experience, IKEA has the best mattresses for the price for foam, latex and memory foam mattresses. With these mattresses you just get wooden slats for the bed (or a bed that comes with wooden slats) and you're good to go.

If you want/need a more traditional spring mattress with a box spring, IKEA is not the place to go, and you're better off going to a mattress store.
posted by audacity at 7:18 PM on November 6, 2009

An ex of mine had an IKEA mattress. It developed.... I'd say "dips" like AnnaRat above, but "canyons" is more the term... and we had to stuff the holes with towels and fight over who slept on that side. NEVER AGAIN! ;)

This was spring-type mattress. I understand it was less than 12 months old. (Loss of the receipt is why they wouldn't accept it being returned under warranty.) I can't speak for the other types; sounds from the above like they might be better at least!
posted by springbound at 7:38 PM on November 6, 2009

My husband had an Ikea mattress when we got married and it's quite comfortable and at least 5 years old. I bought an another Ikea mattress (a Sultan, I think) about 3 years ago, after we got together, and within 2 years of buying it, we hated it and bought a new one from Keetsa (love it and they ship!). My husband's older Ikea mattress is still going strong and is our guest room mattress and I still find it very comfortable. We gave away the newer Ikea mattress so maybe in the time between when my husband and I bought our mattresses the quality went down or something.
posted by otherwordlyglow at 7:40 PM on November 6, 2009

At three year mark on a higher end IKEA mattress. No, no, no. Three years is the end of its usefulness, and I am really pushing it. z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z
posted by typewriter at 8:19 PM on November 6, 2009

We shopped around and found a high-end Japenese-like futon mattress that is the best thing I've ever slept on - cotton or wool surrounding a high-density foam core. They sell for like $2,000 at "The Futon Store" (and are of lesser quality than ours, I might add) but we paid about $400 for a mattress that we can take in to have the cotton re-tufted for 6 years.

I chose this because a good friend had something similar that was a DREAM to sleep on.

A few caveats - we found a local manufacturer. Most futons are cheap, often the filling is not as advertised. I think I had an advantage because I had experienced the quality I was seeking.

If you like the idea of memory foam or need a firm mattress for your back - these special mattresses are difficult to source, but well worth it.

Whenever anyone asks a mattress question, I never fail to mention this option. It's the best of all worlds if you can find the right one. Quality+Comfort+Price+Warranty.

I'm in LA MeMail if you want details.
posted by jbenben at 8:34 PM on November 6, 2009 [3 favorites]

Don't do it. I'm as big of an Ikea fangirl as can be, but I've regretted my Ikea mattress-with-built-in-box-spring almost since the day I bought it. At the time it was all I could afford - about half the cost of one of the name-brand mattress/box spring combos - and now I'm too cheap to replace the darned thing until it wears out.
posted by chez shoes at 8:53 PM on November 6, 2009

I'm currently resting comfortably on an Ikea mattress (foam, I think, it fits a Hopen bedframe so it's not very thick). It's one year old now, still firm and doesn't give me any back pain. I think that so long as you don't have back problems, the Ikea will be just fine, but I wouldn't go driving a hundred miles for it.
posted by dnesan at 9:15 PM on November 6, 2009

Not impressed with the long-term use of an Ikea mattress. But I'm also not impressed with "regular" mattresses. I have grown to hate box springs, and have used a slat bed of some kind for many years. But I didn't love my mattress until I got natural latex. THICK latex. When I tried it out at the store, I had one of those "Where have you BEEN all my life??!!!" experiences.

It's good for the partner disturbance thing, holds up really well long term, and comes in various densities. (I spent an hour trying every one in the store.) The mattress is fairly thick, has a latex layer at the top and springs underneath, and I'm a little wary of this. I don't trust springs to hold up over time, but if they crap out I can unzip the cover, take the latex out and do something else with it.

YMMV. Good luck.
posted by shifafa at 9:16 PM on November 6, 2009

We bought an Ikea mattress when we moved apartments this year (a firm one, a sultan something, lots of cotton and natural fibres in it). It is 100 times better than the much more expensive, shithouse mattress that we bought from a bedding store 3 years prior, and seems to be holding up (no unexpected dips or anything) very well. I heart Ikea.
posted by smoke at 10:29 PM on November 6, 2009

do you have a local mattress store? we got ours from a guy who made them in the back of the shop - memory foam pillow top king all about 1/3 of what sealy and the like wanted. it's still the most comfortable bed i've ever slept on.
posted by nadawi at 1:20 AM on November 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

I bought a new mattress a couple of months ago and spent ages in the run-up to deciding going to every place in this area that sold beds and trying various mattresses. I was not impressed with Ikea. From the price point, compared with the pricing in other department and bedding stores, Ikea is at the cheap end of the scale - I know Ikea is meant to be a budget store but when you're buying a mattress, I would advise you to spend as much as you can afford to spend because a good night's sleep is vital to your well-being.

In the end I went with one from a chain (Dreams, a UK chain), but before I finally bought my mattress of choice I went to 3 different branches of Dreams and tried out the same mattress to make sure the one in my local store wasn't just a flukey extra-comfortable one.

I ended up with a firm pocket-sprung mattress with a memory foam pillow top. It cost probably more than I'd wanted to pay but it was by far and away the most comfortable I found and they had it on a year's interest-free payment too.

I also found from looking round the bed stores that the really good-quality mattresses aren't usually part of the half-price promotions these places have to draw you in the door.
posted by essexjan at 1:21 AM on November 7, 2009

I have an IKEA mattress and am happy with it, so you just have to try out the mattresses and see if you like them. Some commenters hate their IKEA mattresses, but I once had a non-IKEA mattress that was junk, so there are just a lot of bad mattresses out there no matter where you get them.

I would not drive 100 miles just for an IKEA mattress though. If you have other stuff to get at IKEA and want to try out the mattresses too, then go ahead. But in my experience IKEA mattresses aren't as much of a bargain as their other stuff, so if you need just a mattress, then go to the local mattress place.
posted by massysett at 4:54 AM on November 7, 2009

I have only slept on cheap Ikea mattresses so cannot attest to quality at the high end, but one thing to take into consideration is that Ikea (UK; don't know if the same applies in Canada) use non-standard mattress sizes, so only Ikea sheets will fit Ikea mattresses properly. If you are into your thread counts this is a big drawback, as all the Ikea sheets I've ever seen are crap.
posted by stuck on an island at 5:16 AM on November 7, 2009

I'm on an Ikea mattress -- medium firmness, coil sprung with moderate pillowtop. I've had it for about 2 years and it suits me just fine.

A previous AskMeFi question addressed this topic, and I remember reading a comment that quoted a mattress-industry insider as saying that all mattresses of similar type (i.e. foam vs spring, etc) are pretty much the same -- the difference is all in the marketing / placebo effect. I also remember reading his advice to just buy the firmest coil spring mattress you can tolerate, and put your own layer of egg-crate foam if you want the pillow-top effect. But of course I can't find the link right now.
posted by randomstriker at 6:05 AM on November 7, 2009

We've had a foam IKEA mattress for about four years with no issues. It's a foam mattress, not spring, with wooden slats on the bottom and an extra padded topper on top. It's been fine and not half as dippy-rolly-squishy as many hotel mattresses have been. To address the sheet issue, we're in the US and we've not had any particular problem with sheets fitting our Queen IKEA mattress with topper.
posted by cobaltnine at 6:15 AM on November 7, 2009

IKEA is a great place for a mattress if one of your criteria is the ability to move it in a Honda Civic.
posted by blue_beetle at 6:37 AM on November 7, 2009

I once purchased an Ikea mattress and bed frame combo because it was significantly cheaper than a "traditional" mattress, and I was a student.... big mistake. I ended up having to replace it after 4 years anyway because it just completely sagged in the middle (I am not especially heavy -- 160lbs) and was terrible for my posture.

I purchased a new, more expensive mattress (a Sealy, I believe) and it was like night and day -- I was suddenly sleeping a full 8 hours rather than waking up repeatedly.

If you can afford it, I highly recommend spending more and staying away from Ikea mattresses.
posted by modernnomad at 7:21 AM on November 7, 2009

Interesting article from Slate on buying a mattress.

My only bit of advice is stay the hell away from Stearns & Foster. Overpriced crap.
posted by Bron at 8:07 AM on November 7, 2009

We've had an IKEA foam mattress for 5 years now (exact model no longer available)--it has a memory foam layer on top, and was in the middle of their price range for foam mattresses and in the "very firm" range in terms of firmness. After five years of usage, it is just as comfortable as when we bought it--no dips, unevenness, still firm and supportive.

I don't know how it compares to non-IKEA foam mattresses of similar construction in terms of price/comfort/durability. I do know I will never go back to inner-spring mattresses again. The only thing I would have done differently is gotten one with a layer of wool.

On the other hand, I made the mistake of getting cheap inner-spring IKEA mattresses for my kids' beds, and those are really awful.
posted by drlith at 8:15 AM on November 7, 2009

Some or all of this, you may already know, but just saying it anyway..
1) Only test you can apply to a mattress is lie down for 10-15 mins on the mattress and see how comfortable it is. It doesn't matter IKEA or non-IKEA. So to answer your question, No, it does not make sense to drive 2 hrs just for the sake of IKEA.
2) seconding kathrineg, haggle, haggle, haggle. This is one industry where prices are exorbitantly inflated and there is lot of room for haggling. I have bought a mattress for 500$, same brand, same quality, same model no was sold in LEEDS store for 1200$. LEEDS wouldn't come down on the price. Walk out of the shop immediately, if they don't want to come down on the prices.
3) Find 3-4 mattress stores around you. Visit all of them, one by one, spend 10 mins sleeping on each o mattresses you like. Don't talk about price unless you feel comfortable on the mattress. Don't look at the price tag, it does not matter.As ou lie down, think about this - after a long hard day's work, you come home and want to relax. You lie down on the mattress, how do you feel?
Best of luck for your mattress shopping!
posted by tvjoshi at 8:51 AM on November 7, 2009

Seconding Audacity - We bought an Ikea mattress because we wanted a latex foam one. I'd have been much more hesitant if we'd wanted a traditional spring mattress. Five years on the latex mattress is still doing great, no sign of wear at all.
posted by crabintheocean at 12:19 PM on November 7, 2009

"but one thing to take into consideration is that Ikea (UK; don't know if the same applies in Canada) use non-standard mattress sizes, so only Ikea sheets will fit Ikea mattresses properly."

Not my experience. Our Ikea mattress is a queen, it's sitting on a standard queen slatted frame (made in the UK) and various standard queen sheets (from the US) are fitting it just fine. I never use Ikea bed linen (actually I think that's one thing you shouldn't buy from them, but I'm a snob and that's another conversation).
posted by crabintheocean at 4:37 PM on November 10, 2009