A Good Night's Sleep: The Making of a Mattress

This is the story of a man's quest for a good night's sleep.

For ten long years, Mr. H. has tried to find a way to get a good night's rest.

He wanted a natural wool mattress, a sleep number mattress, an innerspring mattress and a king sized mattress all in one. And without the several thousand dollar price tag.

Why not make his own?

He went to a local mattress factory and bought two extra long twin sized beds... only the spring part.

Then he went to a local futon factory and found a roll of wool, already washed and carded, and ready to use. He was planning on going straight to the source- local sheep- but thought he saved a lot of time and trouble this way.

Then it was off to the fabric store for batting and muslin, and to Wal-mart for mattress covers.

This is what he brought home:




It was fortunate that we (yes, of course this project turned into a "we" project) had a large building available to us to assemble the mattresses.

Several layers of batting were laid down on wide muslin.


Next came the wool. Wool is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Though this would have been an excellent mattress made entirely of wool, it was alas too expensive to do (unless, of course, we had wool straight from the sheep, to wash and dry and clean and card ourselves).



The batting was "sandwiched" between muslin, and the sides sewn up.

Here is the tufting:Here we laid these "toppers" straight on the springs. Why go to the bother of encasing them? Then we were free to adjust each mattress for desired softness. And, when we have the time or money, we may want better wool mattress toppers and can replace these very easily.


With the twin mattress pads over each spring and topper, one could not tell that they were not "real" mattresses.
And for the unifying element: the king sized cover.