On Our Way to a New Bed

Yes, dear readers, it’s true. Our Nautilus Sleep Systems bed is history. I took the bed apart last night so that I could put the air mattress on the base for us to sleep on until we figured out what to do and discovered the deciding factor. I first unzipped the pillowtop and as I folded it in half and proceeded to move it into the hallway, my hand found this wet spot in the middle where I had folded it. Yes, wet. Not damp, but soaking wet. Quite dismayed, I wondered what was going on, so I went back and looked at the air chambers which were now exposed and found some drops of wetness towards the middle. Now I’m REALLY starting to wonder what’s going on, so I unfold the pillow top and look at the back side that was against the air chambers. And I see two tiny spots of mold. Oh yes… ew. I called Terry up to take a look because, at this point, I am really flustered. We unzipped the pillow top itself and pulled apart the foam layers. The top layer is memory foam and is unaffected, except for where it has changed colors over the years due to the heat from two people sleeping on it every night. This is normal. Then we looked at the egg crate foam. The front side looked fine, but we looked at the back and found a larger, dispersed area of mold.

Now, to be clear, I’m not talking about the big splotches of green fuzzy mold that grow on top of the ham sandwich that you’ve left in the refrigerator for 3 weeks, I’m talking about the black mildew that forms in a damp area. In the middle of our pillowtop. Now, seriously, how did that happen? I think we will never know for sure. Terry’s best guess is that it stems from the time when we cleaned the pillowtop with the hand tool from our steam cleaner. But we let it air out afterwards and proceeded to sleep on it, so one would think that we would notice a wet spot?? We did add a waterproof, hypo-allergenic mattress cover into the mix, but I’m pretty sure that was some time after the cleaning.

The bottom line remains – we will not be sleeping on that mattress again. So, we’ll be shelling out a whopping $2500 sometime in the next couple of days for a new Queen sized Select Comfort 7000 series mattress. The technology has improved since we first bought ours and apparently, so has the price. We don’t do anything halfway, do we? It’s the next to the top of the line, but hey, I have problems with my hip, shoulders and neck, so I’m not going to skimp when it comes to something I spend 8 hours a day laying on. While I’m at it and because the mattress is 14″ thick and the sheets we have already didn’t really fit the old mattress that wasn’t quite so high, I’m going to break the bank and buy some of their 420 thread count sheets plus a new Thinsulate comforter with matching blanket. I may even throw in a set of the (much cheaper) flannel sheets. All in the blessedly neutral shades of champagne, ivory and natural (i.e. pretty much the same color and shade, just with different names per product), so no more clashing of the blue sheets that don’t even remotely match the blue carpet which doesn’t quite match the blue blinds which don’t quite match the blue wall color. 😆 My only uncertainty is around how off-white bedding is going to work against the white bedroom furniture I was planning on buying, but you know what? If we have company, which we never allow into the bedroom anyway, we can always throw the old blue patterned comforter over the new set, right?

There goes the tax refund. And we haven’t even managed to file yet! I guess we’ll be finishing that up tonight, after we get back from our trek to the local Select Comfort store. We’ll take the truck, just in case, but I don’t think all of the boxes will fit, even if they have one that we can walk away with. Otherwise, I’ll probably have to stay home some day to receive the 6 or so boxes that the bed will come in (we’ve done this before, remember?), which is okay since my calf muscle on the same side as my bad toe has decided to completely freeze up to the point where I can barely walk. Darn my body’s and my attempts to compensate for the toe injury! 😉