We didn't mind the original RV mattress at first. Actually, somehow my husband and I found it more comfortable than the soft bed in a box mattress that we had had before we moved into an RV full time. The RV mattress, however, eventually started to break down and became very thin. It eventually felt as if we were sleeping directly on the board which serves as our bed frame. Neither my husband nor I were getting any sleep at night so we decided we had to get a new mattress.
As promised in our post RV Counter Replacement, here is how we replaced our RV mattress. It was not an easy task.
I have heard and read about so many RVers who had to get custom mattresses made for their RVs and I am thankful we found a way around this because that sounds terribly expensive. The original RV mattress width was 68 inches which is an annoying size. It is smaller than a king size mattress yet bigger than a full queen. How the heck is this supposed to work?!
I did so much research, including looking at different RV mattress size charts. Our RV mattress was 68 inches wide by 82 inches long. Annoying! Here is a mattress size chart for both RV and regular mattress:
RV Size Chart:
Queen 60 inches wide by 80 inches long
King 72-75 inches wide by 72-80 inches long
Regular Mattress Size Chart:
Queen 60 inches wide by 80 inches long
Olympic Queen 66 inches wide by 80 inches long
California King 72 inches wide by 84 inches long
After searching extensively online and reading about different types of mattresses, My husband and I had already determined that we could only get a bed in a box because any full-size mattress that didn't come compressed would not make it around the corner and up the stairs to our bedroom as the space was too tight. This narrowed our search down a bit.
The slide out our mattress sits on which acts as our bed frame is 70 inches wide. This is too narrow for a Queen size mattress and yet not wide enough for a King size mattress.. Annoying!
I checked out bed in a box California King mattresses online which are 72 inches wide, just two inches wider than the space in our slide out that our mattress sits on, and decided that considering the mattresses are made of foam. I could probably make it a tight squeeze. After presenting all the research I had done on mattress sizes to my husband, he agreed that we should give the California King a try.
When the mattress arrived my husband was at work but I was too excited to wait for him to help me dispose of the old one and set up the new one. So I did this all on my own! What a workout indeed! Even the delivery driver was in a sweat as he helped me push the mattress box into the RV.
Once it was in the RV I had to drag the box up the stairs and around the corner to start taking it out of the box and put atop of the frame part. As you can see, this made quite the mess! I had to use scissors to carefully cut the plastic wrapping and start slowly taking it out of the air-tight packaging as I unravelled it in the right place to align perfectly with the width of the bed. It turned out this didn't matter because I actually had it the wrong way and had to change it all around afterwards anyways. Haa!!
When I finally got the bed out of the box, I quickly put the mattress cover and sheets on and stood on the slide out part of the wood frame and pulled the mattress in as much as I could to get it as close to the end of the frame as I could. This worked out well.
It was a hard, but perfect fit! Our mattress is longer and heavier than the original RV mattress so the hydraulic lift at the end of the bed for the under bed storage does not stay up without holding it up. However, it is a small price to pay for a good night's sleep!
- M
留言