What to Look for When Buying a King Size Mattress

Size Matters

• Determine which king sized mattress you really need. All kings are not created equal, and that goes not only for quality, but actual size as well. A standard king is 76 inches wide and 80 inches long, while a California king is 72 inches wide and 84 inches long, according to The Better Sleep Council. If you are well over six feet tall and often find that your feet hang off the end of a queen bed, a standard king will not help this situation at all. They are the same length. The additional four inches provided by a California king mattress will help with the height issue, although you will be giving up four inches personal space in width.

  Buy a standard king if your main concern is making more personal room for you and your partner, kids or pets on the bed.

  The physical dimensions of your room can make a difference too. Use a tape measure to get the exact measurements of your bedroom and mark where the corners of each size mattress will be once it is in the room. Leave yourself enough room between the mattress and walls to avoid overcrowding.

Quality Over Price

• Do not sacrifice quality for price. The level of comfort and the ability to get proper rest and support makes your mattress one of the most influential home furnishing on your everyday life. Your mattress can cost anywhere from several hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars, and buying on either end of the spectrum is not necessarily the right move.

  Stick with trusted brand names or other products that have been recommended by people you know who have had their mattresses for more than a year. Look at the entire line available at your local sleep shop and unless you fall in love with that $5000 mattress up front, try to buy something in the upper-middle of the product line.

Types

• Choose a type of mattress that is comfortable to you and fits your needs.
  Innerspring mattresses with pocketed coils and continuous coils are among the most popular on the market. Buy a pocketed coil system mattress (Simmons BeautyRest is a common example) if you are looking for equal weight distribution. These types of mattresses prevent excessive pressure on certain points of the body to allow for sleeping in the same position all night. A continuous coil system (such as Serta Perfect Sleeper) is ideal for couples that wish to limit motion transfer from one person to another. In other words, you won't feel the other person moving around at night.

  Memory foam mattresses (such as Tempur-Pedic) eliminate pressure on the body and have virtually no motion transfer, but have the disadvantage of being quite expensive. According to AskMen.com, people tend to sink too far into the mattress and have trouble shifting their weight, while others complain that these mattresses "sleep hot."