Kingsdown/DormoDiagnostics 21/Sleepy’s NY…A mixed review, PLUS 1 YR. UPDATE Kingsdown Ultimate Pillow Top
The Best Money I have ever spent!! Kingsdown Ultimate Pillow Top About 3 weeks ago, My wife and I purchased a Kingsdown Body System from the Sleepy's in Hillsborough ...
Kingsdown Mattress Stopped My Aches and Pains Kingsdown Ultimate Pillow Top I have had my Kingsdown Dormo Mattress for about two years now. Before my wife and I slept on a stan...
After having slept on a very low-end discount mattress for over 10 years, I realized it was time to move on. After doing some research, it was clear to me that the mattress industry is the biggest racket imaginable, and it would be impossible to comparison shop. Ordering a mattress via telephone seemed idiotic, so I just hit the stores. I live in NYC near a major shopping throroughfare, so all the biggies were within blocks of each other (Rockaway Bedding, 1800MATTRESS, Sleepy’s, Mattress Giant, etc). The ONLY reason I ended up at Sleepy’s was because they had the largest selection. I figured it was six-of-one-half-a-dozen-of-the-other where I bought a set anyhow, since all the model names of brands were different and the prices fluctuated so wildly. Although I knew precious little about mattress, I’m a savvy shopper and assumed (correctly) that would be attacked by pushy, lying salesmen the minute my big toe entered the store. While this is annoying, it’s just part of it, and I think it’s important for customers to understand this so they don’t feel too taken advantage of. You have to walk in there knowing you will get hosed in one fashion or another.
I basically ditched the salesman by taking an extraordinary amount of time on each and every set in the store. Literally.
I had never heard of Kingsdown, and that made me a little nervous. Yes, he pushed the brand in particular, but I did like the Dormo Diagnostics “21″ the best. It was a one-sided pillow-top (no flipping) with a brushed-polycotton non-satiny covering. Seemed like it might be less hot. Why anyone would design a white mattress is beyond me, but whatever. It was lofty, but not as high as many of the other models, which meant it was potentially lighter. I was concerned about a new mattress set cracking my old wooden bed frame. Also, I knew my sheets would fit. It was around $1300 for a Full including delivery & mattress cover–a mammoth purchase for me. May as well have been a car. But you can’t put a price on good sleep, right?
So, the first two nights were heaven. As previous posters have noted, this is a very soft-feeling mattress. It’s not for everyone. It is truly marshmellowish. I love that feeling, personally. I will also say that although I’m only 35 years old, I have thrown out my back a few times over the years between bartending, high heeled shoes, being a registered nurse and walking a 90lb dog. I would wake up stiff and in pain daily. Now I don’t as much. In part, I think I have the matress to thank. Under all the squish lies a nice firm base. I can sleep on my stomach without a pillow again–my fave– after years of not being able to. This makes me happy. Did this set “save my life”? No. But now I can sleep through the night, and that’s pretty nice.
Third night–and I’m not exaggerating here–third night, I felt like I was listing into the midddle. This scared me half to death. I raced to Epinions, like I should have done BEFORE I bought the set, and got more and more upset the more I read. One thing that occured to me was that my bedframe was antique and had no central support. After two weeks I went to my local lumber store and bought four 1×6’s to lay under the boxspring. Two weeks was the magic number because the salesman told me that under the terms of Kingsdown warantee, the thing needed rotating every two weeks for the first few months, followed by monthly. I live alone, my bedroom is tiny and none of my beeefier friends live nearby, and it was June so I was in no rush to perform this task.
I did it, though, and lay the slats down and rotated the matresss & box spring one full turn. Lo and behold, the warantee was tacked to the side of the mattress that I could not previously see! Thanks, Delivery Guys! That was incredible cheezy of you! Exhausted and hot and sweaty, I put it all back together sheets and all, and flopped into it to read my warantee. No more center sagging. Yeah!
CRUSHED to discover that the warantee stipulated that I need FIVE support slats and a CENTER LEG (!!!) or else my warantee is void! That would have been handy to know in advance, no? Also, the rotating was more often than I was told by Marc the Kingsdown-happy Sleepy’s salesman (”…my wife is a nurse, too and I bought her this mattress!!” He really said that. People, I can’t make this stuff up.) There were other creeppy, annoying notes in the warantee, including advice that I may need a new mattress in 8-10 years anyway…umm…then why are you offering me a 20 year warantee? And, really, what has five legs? Nothing in nature has five legs. Not even bugs.
The entire mattress shopping experience left an awful taste in my mouth. And I hope I don’t have the troubles that some posters had with getting their sets inspected when they finally sagged out. I’ve been on it for exactly two months now and yes, my pillowtop is becoming a victim of what the mattress industry likes to gently refer to as “body indentation”. Please, spare me. However, I work long hard hours and when I get home in the morning I crawl into bed with a big smile. I really do. Additionally, out of fear of creating a me-shaped divet, I sleep on both the left and right sides of the mattress, and throw in a night of diagonal sleeping, once in a while. This may seem silly, but I don’t want to buy another mattress set, or engage in what I know will be a fight with Sleepy’s or Heaven-forbid with Kingsdown, anytime soon.
It is important to note that I am a single woman 125lbs (sounds like a personal ad) and I currently sleep alone. Hey- it can’t be Sex In The City all the time. I’ve read over and over that folks are having troubles with this brand if they are heavier or a couple, and I believe them 100%. I’m very, very nervous about what will happen to this set when I road test it with another person. I will update this review as soon as the saga of “Life With Dormo” unfolds.
A mattress is a big-ticket item. Choose wisely.
9/13/06 UPDATE:
It’s been a whole year, so I thought I should give an update on the progress of “Life With Dormo”. A lot has happened in a year, I’m now engaged, and no longer a single skinny gal with a full-sized mattress all to herself. My fiancee is a pretty big guy by anyone’s standards–too big to share a full-sized mattress with but what can you do? He adds another 200lbs to the Dormo Diagnostic (235, actually, but don’t tell him that) and gets cranky when I ask him to switch sides with me three times a week so that the bed doesn’t start sinking in his direction. So far it’s working, but I know it won’t last (the mattress, not the relationship–the relationship is golden). The pillowtop is a little flatter than it used to be, but I guess that is to be expected. I have to inch farther to one side to avoid rolling into the middle, so all-night cuddling is out. I never did add the center leg, but I did add a fifth slat across the frame and it didn’t make too much of a difference.
I love my honey by I have to admit I sometimes look forward to coming home in the morning knowing that he’ll be leaving for work and I can have the bed all to myself. It’s still very, very comfortable–but it’s really not a two-person bed. It’s too squishy, two people add too much weight and for us it’s one size too small. We just bought a house and I do think that if we had the cash We’d buy the same style mattress in a Queen.
But you’d better believe I’m installing that fifth leg if we do.
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