Costco Connection - July 2012

Sleep on this

JUST AS A good mattress provides body support, a pillow should provide head and neck support.

Costco warehouses are offering many different types of pillows this summer, including down alternative and gel-infused memory foam. Costco.com carries pillows made of luxury white goose down, natural latex and more.

When it comes to sheets, higher mattresses require deeper sheets, which are, of course, also available in warehouses and on Costco.com.

I have my eyes warehouse-focused on the Raymond Waites six-piece printed sheet set (item #461461), priced at $29.99, with two printed pillowcases and two extra pillowcases in coordinating solid colors.—PV

*Prices may vary due to shipping.

Costco beds spread

NO MATTER IF you prefer the ease of shopping Costco.com, with mattress delivery included, or like the touch-and-feel experience of Costco warehouses, plenty of dreamy bed options are available right now.

Warehouse selection

Warehouse offerings expand during the semiannual furniture rollouts, from July 5 to mid-August and from December 26 to mid-February. You will find queen ( 60 x 80 inches) mattresses, Costco’s most popular size, in all warehouses and king ( 76 x 80 inches) mattresses in all warehouses except the ones that carry the 72 x 84-inch California kings (California and some Arizona locations).

Chapman (the area in all mattresses that receives the most use) is strengthened and reinforced and its edge upgraded with high-density support foam, making it easier to get up and down.

Starting at $599.99 for the queen set (includes tailor-made box springs), this mattress will make you think you’re dreaming.

Costco beds are made to order in one of 17 U.S. regional factories, take more than a week to construct and are never stockpiled. Additionally, all innerspring coils are manufactured in-house rather than third-party jobbed.

Sealy innerspring mattresses

• The 16-inch-thick Kirkland Signature™ by Stearns & Foster® Portofino Luxury Plush Mattress Set, which is pictured below, is built by hand by certified craftspeople using only the finest materials.

I like the Euro-style (attached) pillow-top mattress featuring plush super-soft foam and high-loft fiber, five layers of comfort foam, low-profile 5-inch-thick box spring and exceptional savings—the queen set costs

Bed in a box

Memory foam was developed for NASA to provide relief for astronauts in “G-force” situations. It molds around your body, supporting it evenly.

Kristin reports, “Memory foam quality is
not just about density [weight] as some
brands tout. We are aware that inferior mate-
rials, such as clay, can be added to create ficti-
tious ‘weight.’ Costco does not allow this.”
Costco foam mattresses are constructed
with high-quality, advanced, visco-elastic,
open-cell memory foam. This foam com-
prises billions of minute holes that, when
compressed, encourage airflow to adjoining
cells—allowing the foam to breathe and body
heat to dissipate.

The memory foam mattresses in Costco warehouses weigh less than 115 pounds and are compacted into boxes sized for portability.

Designed to also work with adjustable bed base systems, the center third of the

IRIDIO PHOTOGRAPHY

$999.99 to $1,099.99 in warehouses versus market pricing starting at $1,447.

•Introduced in March 2012, the 12.5-inch-thick Chapman™ Plush Mattress Set (see price-comparison chart below) is the first Costco Sealy Posturepedic mattress with individually encased, twice-tempered coil innersprings that reduce motion, especially between sleep partners.

NovaForm Gel-Memory foam mattress

• Costco is the first retailer in the country to offer 100-percent-pure (made in the U.S.) visco-elastic, open-cell, premium memory foam mattresses infused with gel beads.

Pioneered by Sleep Innovations®, Costco’s exclusive NovaForm gel foam technology helps dissipate body heat exceptionally well and provides more balanced support to relieve sensitive pressure points.

The most recent offering in warehouses is the 12-inch-thick NovaForm mattress with a 2.5-inch layer of gel-infused memory foam beads. You can’t feel the gel beads, and they won’t pour out, as they are suspended within the foam cell structure, but they do provide a welcome “push-back” sensation.

NovaForm sales have skyrocketed at Costco, and it’s easy to understand why with the 12-inch-thick queen mattress (no foundation) priced at $499.99 in warehouses; other retailers sell similar brands for as much as $3,000.

Costco.com selection

Costco.com’s mattress inventory, including Sealy and NovaForm, is always extensive, with options from firm to luxury and twin to Cal king.

Restful nights

All Costco mattresses are free of known toxins and contain no formaldehyde, no poly-brominated diphenyl ether and no chloroflu-orocarbons. They are hypoallergenic and dust-mite resistant, test at the highest level of federal flammability (open flame) standards and are selected to hit the sweet spot between firm and plush.

Prices for mattresses in Costco warehouses and at Costco.com run from 30 to 70 percent less than for comparable configurations elsewhere.

As for that pesky “;; ;;; ;;;;;;” tag, it acts as identification if there is a warranty claim, so it’s best not to remove it. C

Sleep Science™ memory foam mattress collection

• Available only on Costco.com. Most popular is Sleep Science’s 13-inch-thick Ara, a plush pillow-top, 100-percent-pure visco-elastic premium, layered memory foam mattress. The Wedge, another choice, has an edge-to-edge support system of angled firm polyurethane foam that runs along the sides of the mattress, providing a stable sitting edge.