Foam Day!!

Well, I have all kinds of new foam and latex in my house now.

Yesterday, the latex topper arrived. It's all soft and squishy. I liked sleeping on it, but I didn't love it. Now with the new case that arrived today, I think I'm going to love it!

Here are the layers. They are upside down in this image because I had to put all the layers in the case upside down since it zippers on the bottom. Not my favorite case, but I ordered it before I did a lot of research and found ones that zipper on the top. You see the old 6" of high density foam and old 4" of memory foam wrapped in a cover from my old bed and the new 2" of eco-friendly latex. You can also see the staple holes in the foam where the old case was attached. And surprisingly it's only aged yellow on the very edges, the top and bottom still look bright yellow.

Here it is all in case upside down.

And then right side up. Which took quite a bit of maneuvering. That 12 inches of foam is heavy when it's all in one case. The latex weighs 21 pounds and I'm guessing the memory foam weighs between 30 and 40 pounds. The foam base is rather light but still....

Ah! It looks like a mattress again. And that cover is bamboo and wool and super soft. I love it. A pain to put everything in it, but so worth it. I am in love with my bed again. And now it's goofy high at 12 inches for the mattress alone. I have to jump up on it just like I did when I first got it.

And I didn't stop there. I also received my new couch cushions. The old ones were 7 years old and just plain flattened when you sat on them.

A little less than two weeks ago, I measured the cushions and sent the order into the Foam Factory (foambymail.com). And here's what they sent back.

One sixteen pound box with three tightly wrapped cushions.

Take off several layers of plastic and you get this:

Then when you cut open that bag they expand to full size:

I ordered the HD36 foam which is the high quality that is supposed to last 12 to 18 years. I'm sure it's better foam then the sofa had to start with! I can see that the dacron wrap is much better than what I had before because it is wrapped all the way around the cushions. On my old ones it did not wrap around the sides.

And after washing all the covers and stuffing the new cushions into them, here is the couch.

It's a little tight because those cushions are made to really fit. I was actually afraid that they wouldn't fit because they were about two or three inches too big when they weren't in the covers. The foam will shrink as it ages and settle into the couch a bit more. The fabric on the couch is in great shape. I'm so happy that for $149 I could give the couch a whole new life.

Fixing My Pillowtop Mattress

I bought my mattress 10 years ago from a place called Memory Foam Source (which is no longer around), but I found out that the manufacturer of the mattress is Park Place and they are still around. I loved that mattress from day one. I mean LOVED IT! It's their Sleep Therapy 4000 which is 6" of foam then 4" of memory foam topped with a foam pillowtop. 

Well, after 10 years it started sagging. And since I knew it was in layers, I was wondering if I need to swap out the memory foam layer. You can buy memory foam almost everywhere these days. I thought I would just have to cut into the case to find out. Well, it turns out that I would have to cut OFF the case to find out. That sucker was extremely well made. Each layer sewn into it's own box and sewn to the next layer. And the pillowtop was glued to the memory foam. So I went in with a seam ripper (which broke) and finished up the job with fabric scissors. I just cut the casing off and pulled the memory foam from the topper (it's not pretty in some spots — that glue was still holding on!) It turns out that the bad layer was the pillowtop. All that foam was compressed in the middle where I sleep. The other layers look fine. I tested each one individually and they seem to be holding up.

For right now, I just put the 4" memory foam (which is a nightmare to move, it's like moving a big sheet of jello) on top of the 6" base foam. I put mattress pads on it and it's good to go. Honestly, I didn't like sleeping on it that much. And here I thought that I loved memory foam! It has a rather stiff feeling. I guess what I really enjoyed about my old mattress was the cushion of the topper. So I've decided to replace the old foam pillowtop with a latex topper. I found a natural one from SleepOnLatex. 

I'm waiting for a 2" soft latex topper to come in. I spent hours debating the firmness of the latex topper. I thought was I liked about my mattress was how firm it was, but I think what I am now missing is the softness of the foam topper, so I finally picked a soft latex for the new top layer.

I've also purchased a 12" mattress cover with a zipper. I really liked having a "mattress" and not a collection of foam pieces so I think the cover will give me that feeling again. Plus I can move it as a whole when I need to move my bed and I can just unzip it and replace a layer when one of those layers gives out. I'm thinking the memory foam may need replacing sooner than later, but I'm going to see how everything feels with the latex topper before I make that decision.

I'm pretty excited. For about $260 I'm updating my mattress without creating a lot of waste. Hopefully it will be like new again.

Frangipani Inflo!

After 4 years and one tragic fall, my Frangipani (better known as a stick with a few leaves) has an inflo, which means it's going to bloom!

I think dedicated gardeners are able to successfully grow Frangipani in Virginia, but I'm a lazy gardener at best. So I depend on a hope and a prayer. And it seems that my prayer might be answered.

To smell those flowers again would be heaven. I've read that it will be six weeks before bloom. So I'll be back around July 7.