Inside: Our Douglas Mattress Review; from the ordering to the delivery and our thoughts after a couple of weeks sleeping on the bed.
If you recall a few posts back, I explained why and how we found ourselves in sudden need of a mattress. I did a lot of online research and shopping and we finally settled on ordering the Douglas Mattress. When I reached out to Douglas, they provided us with a Queen Sized Douglas for review purposes – however, we were set on purchasing the Douglas either way and obviously all my opinions about the product are my own. Here are my thoughts on the Douglas so far.
Why we chose the Douglas Mattress
If you’ll recall from the initial shopping post I did, the Douglas had a few things going for it that put it over the top for us – it is Made in Canada, it’s made from eco-friendly materials and processes and it comes in at about $100 cheaper than its primary competition. It also has a 15-year full warranty (versus a ten year for most of the others) and it’s money back refund period is 120 nights (versus 100 for others). I’m honestly not sure if the 20 nights actually makes a difference – I feel like if you’re not going to like the mattress, you’ll know before then.
Even still, all those factors added up and resulted in us choosing this mattress over all the others. The Queen size we have retails for less than $800 CAD and it comes with free shipping. I know the pillow top we previously had was approximately $1100 CAD plus tax and that was five years ago. There is a clear price difference for these boxed beds – likely because there’s no showroom and overhead costs are low.
How to prepare to receive your Mattress in a Box
So, here’s the thing. When the mattress arrives, it’s all nicely packaged in the box and you can stash it in a corner until you’re ready to deal with it. In fact, that’s exactly what we did. It arrived after three business days and we left it in a corner of the bedroom until the weekend when we could both be around to pull the room together. You have to remember that even though it’s a mattress in a box – it’s still a mattress that’s got some weight to it and once it’s open, it’s a full size mattress. You definitely need two people to lift it if you’re going up stairs.
Make sure you’ve cleared the box spring or platform bed before you open the box. Once you cut the plastic off the mattress, it inflates super quickly! I’d also recommend moving out your previous mattress before opening the box. No one wants to move around a small room with two mattresses in it!
What makes a Mattress in a Box different from a regular mattress?
Basically, everything. LOL. Okay, seriously, the difference is noticeable immediately. Our previous pillow top mattress (which we moved into the guest room), was fairly firm and a bit cushy on top – but not too much. It is literally like sitting on top of a pillow. When you sit or lay on the Douglas, there’s less bounce and a bit more sink. It isn’t quite as firm as our pillow top.
The other hugely noticeable difference is the way the Douglas releases pressure points. Many of you know I have pretty wicked Carpal Tunnel that often splints into my shoulders and rib cage. Sometimes the pain is so bad, I can’t roll over in my sleep or it wakes me up. That was one of the first things I tested with the Douglas and I can honestly feel the difference in my shoulders. I will report back on this over the long term.
How are we liking our Douglas Mattress so far?
We have been sleeping on the Douglas for about a week now and so far we like it. It’s cozy to crawl into bed at night for sure. Dan swears he’s been less sore in the mornings too. As far as the cooling gel foam layer, it’s been hard to review that because it’s been 38C and humid this week – so it’s hot everywhere, but it’s not like I feel the mattress is contributing to the heat. Our normal bed sheets fit well onto the mattress, which was nice. No need to buy new, special bedding.
I will say for the first couple nights there was a bit of off-gassing from the packaging. I’m more sensitive to these things than Dan – he didn’t notice it, but I did. After a week, however, it’s totally gone and it was not enough to stop us from sleeping on the bed.
I’ve made a note in the calendar for 120 days from now (okay, it’s now 112 days) and I will report back on our final findings and reviews!
Other Douglas Mattress Reviews
- Here the Sleep Judge does a video review of hers
- Sleepopolis gives a video review of the Douglas
Here are some other posts you’ll want to check out
As mentioned at the start of this post, we received our Douglas Mattress in exchange for a review, however my opinions are my own. This post also contains affiliate links for your convenience. Please see our disclosure and privacy policy here.
