Shop Local - Quality Sleep Shop / My Green Mattress Showroom Experience
Been mattress shopping for what seems like a year now, and every time I was going to pull the trigger, I got cold feet. At one point, I purchased a Tempur-Pedic Supreme 11.5” Medium Hybrid from Costco (was on sale), but ended up cancelling because it just didn't sit right in my soul. I knew I needed to go and physically test these beds so I could try to avoid chaos, but I was set on doing the Costco tango until I ended up with one that worked... After cancelling that Tempur-Pedic, I started lurking this subreddit and learned quite a lot in a short amount of time. No more than 48 hours ago, I was dead set on pulling the trigger on the Novaform 16.5" Platinum Luxury Hybrid, but something told me to do one more Google/Reddit search. "Best mattress stores in the Chicagoland area..." Lo and behold, no more than 25-30 minutes away was Quality Sleep Shop / My Green Mattress. For the last 12 months of being a lazy bum and not stepping foot into a store and properly testing mattresses, something said: "This is the one..."
As I said, 48 hours ago, I was going to pull the trigger on a Costco mattress... fast forward to 4 PM CST today, and I'm at this discrete showroom that you honestly wouldn't know was there if you didn't do your research first. My wife arrived a few minutes before me and had already gone in and had been speaking to the sales rep, Brian. I came in, they caught me up on their convo, and it was off to testing beds. Brian, if you ever read this, you are the man! Extremely professional while also being laid back and not trying to force a sale of any kind. Was 100% transparent and was able to educate us on the beds without making it sound like rocket science. Tested at least 6-7 mattresses and pretty much narrowed it down to two. On the QSS side, the Kelly stood out. On the MGM side, the Natural Escape Organic was my winner. I actually mentioned the KD Frames beds that I purchased (two Twin XL Ekko's), and Brian mentioned that they actually sold their frames in-store at one point, so he was very familiar with their quality.
Neither my wife nor I have ever lain on a latex mattress, so it was a completely new experience. I can say the Natural Escape is a true medium-firm; it worked for me, but not as much for her. The Kelly is definitely a bit more of a medium, but the quilted cover gave it a bit of a plush feel (like your body is being hugged, but not too much). Although the Natural Escape is a medium-firm, adding the latex topper turned it into more of what the Kelly felt like. My mind was made up on the NE, and my wife's is favouring the Kelly. One important thing she brought up was edge support, and QSS has models that include border firming rods... well, come to find out, since all of their mattresses are built to order, you can add border firming rods to the mattress you want. So even though the Kelly and NE don't come with border firming rods, for a king, add $50, and you now have border firming rods on a mattress that was already pretty high quality and supportive. At this point, I was truly mind-blown by the entire experience. The cherry on top was the fact that they were currently running a 15% off sale on the MGM side of the showroom, so instead of paying $2199 for the NE, it actually would cost less than the Kelly (The Kelly cost $1999, the NE cost $1869 with the sale). But wait, there's more... the 15% sale also applied to the organic latex topper ($422 down to $357). Before any sale, the NE would've ran me $2671 (mattress, topper, and rod addition)... with the sale pricing, I'm looking at $2271.
The last part that actually works out pretty well is this... warranty coverage, sleep trial, and return policy. Now, unlike Costco, it does cost some $ to return/refund your mattress (I want to say that it costs about $150 - $200). I won't get too deep into the warranty or sleep trial (which applies to the topper as well), but the return policy in relation to these two specific mattresses makes it 100% worthwhile to buy the higher-priced mattress. If things don't work out with the NE, I can essentially "downgrade" to the Kelly at essentially no additional cost (the price difference essentially negates the return fee). It ends up a win-win (in my eyes at least) because I can test the NE without the topper (and if my wife approves, we return the topper and get a nice chunk of $ back), test it with the topper (which I have a very good feeling about), and worst case scenario, downgrade to option 1B for pretty much free.
I say all of that to say this... if there is a local mattress manufacturer near you, do your due diligence and check them out. A 3-second Google search followed up with some Reddit research may have found me a BIFL mattress retailer. As much as I love Costco, there was no reality where any of the mattresses they sell would've come close to competing with the mattresses I laid on today. The beautiful thing about it is the fact that QSS/MGM is actually in a lot more states than we realise. I'm lucky enough to have the factory in my backyard, but you can literally go to showrooms in 5 other states to witness these organic mattresses (Texas, Idaho, Minnesota, Georgia, and Colorado).