Last weekend over Sunday dinner with my sister and brother-in-law, I received glorious confirmation that the incredibly heavy memory foam mattress that I’d bought 8 years ago could be disposed of in a non-landfill way.
Here’s how I’d ended up with the albatross bed: My sister had bought an adjustable bed and raved about it, so hubby and I followed her lead and bought the same one soon after. However, I noticed within a few years that the mattress was getting softer and developing some significant dips and ridges. I also noticed that I was beginning to have chronic issues with my neck and back. I’d hesitated to buy something new because I dreaded sending that exceedingly heavy , bulky load to the landfill (truly, it took the efforts of both my teenaged son and hubby to simply rotate it on its adjustable bed frame). I’ve wanted to get rid of it for a long time; I just didn’t know what to do with it!
The unusual conversation came up as we were talking about my sister’s new-found love of sewing. She is not only making herself a new wardrobe, but she’s recently made canvas covers for some of her children’s “fuf” chairs and was making fuf chairs out of her old memory foam mattress! They had replaced it with a hybrid mattress, which can be used on an adjustable bed frame! HOORAY!
That afternoon, I did an online search for the best hybrid mattress for back pain. I landed on the Dream Cloud brand. They were having a sale, of course, so I made my impulse purchase. Lo and behold: It arrived Wednesday! My daughter and I drug the beat up box inside and on Thursday morning, I opened it.
It was easy to slit the box, and then use the enclosed safety razorblade to slit the heavy plastic that was keeping it tightly wound up. I got a little workout in just maneuvering the old memory foam mattress off to the side of my room and wrestling the new Dream Cloud mattress to the bed frame. Each weigh more than 100 pounds!
I leaned the old memory foam mattress against the wall and decided I would unzip it and start cutting it up. After all, I didn’t think I could remove it from the room whole.
I’d been thinking about making cushions for the very long window seat in the upstairs bonus room, so I started there. I measured twice, and then three times, to determine that I’d need to cut the mattress into two strips measuring 18.5” x 60”. I grabbed marker, my yardstick, and my electric knife and got to work, stopping periodically to let the motor cool on the electric knife. It was working pretty hard!
I plan to shred the rest of the mattress and stuff it into an oversized mesh laundry bag. Then I’ll sweet talk my sister into helping me make a fuf cover. 🙂
If I’m successful, I’ll share the projects with you. If I’m not, please forget we ever had this conversation!
