Bedroom Furniture - Box Spring And Foundation Buying Tips

Just like a building has a foundation to provide support your mattress also needs solid support.  In addition to supporting the weight of you an your mattress is must also act as a shock absorber for your tossing and turning and what ever else you're doing on your mattress.

 There are numerous foundation styles used by manufacturers today. The most popular styles are defined for you below:

Built Up Foundation: Used in lower quality mattress sets, this style is nothing more than a wood box covered in fabric to match the mattress.  To be honest with you, I've never seen one of these.

Grid Foundation: Found in most mass-produced, medium to high-end mattress sets.  I've owned these in the past.

Box Spring Foundation: Found in ultra-premium, mass produced mattress sets.  In my opinion, this is the most popular foundation...it consists of a cloth-enclosed frame containing rows of coil springs fastened together and to the frame are the most popular.

Split Foundation / Box Spring: A split foundation/box spring is what it says, it is split in half length wise.

The only time I've run into these is with foundations for "King" beds.

 Foundations, unlike mattresses, do not have the ability to flex as they're taken around corners...so, making the foundation into two pieces facilitates getting them into small spaces and around corners.

Low-profile Foundations / Box Springs:

The new, extra thick, mattresses make it hard to get in and out of bed, plus they're impossible when you want to sit on the edge of the bed.

These, new, "Low-profile, foundations are about 1/2 the thickness of a regular foundation and still supply all the support needed.  I can't figure out why they don't make these the standard.

Not only do they make it easier to get in and out of bed...they don't hid your beautiful headboard and footboard like the thicker foundations do.

 Conclusion:

Don't be mislead by the low height of the beds in the showroom.  They have full sized foundations and mattresses with pillow tops...yet they appear to be a comfortable height.

When you take it home and get it set up it will be a few inches higher.

This is because the legs are shorter and the mounting brackets are lower on the showroom frames...after all, there's not need to stick a show box or suitcase underneath a "showroom" bed :-)

I highly recommend going with the low-profile foundation.

We bought a set with a regular foundation and had to exchange the foundation for a low-profile one...my wife refused to use a step-stool to get in and out of bed.