WWYD? A king bed won't fit up the stairs of our newly built home!!

[JElaineB]

We have a regular king but not a California king, but when we bought it we paid a little extra for them to make it so it would bend in the middle without damaging the mattress. It is good we have that because in our current house we have a staircase that goes half way up then makes a 90 degree angle and goes the rest of the way up. We would have never gotten it up there without that bend in it.

Jennifer
mom to Jacob 9/27/02

[Karenn]

I agree with Lori- don't worry too much about resale. We have the same problem, except with a queen mattress and it didn't even occur to me to check for that before we bought the house. Ours is an older house, so we probably SHOULD have thought of it, but honestly, I was too busy wondering if the kitchen was big enough to even think about matresses and stairways. I think most buyers have other things on their minds.

We did end up bending the matress a little to get it up the stairs and 2 1/2 years later, haven't suffered any adverse effects. Our beautiful antique family heirloom bed didn't fit upstairs either and there was nothing we could do about that one, except buy a new bed- so I do have lots of empathy for you! I hope you find a good solution!

[justlearning]

I really appreciate all of your responses--thanks so much! I posted this message right after I had learned that the bed did not fit, and I really was mad about the whole thing and concerned about its impact on resale.

Reading your responses was VERY helpful. It was comforting to hear that you don't think it will be a problem at the time of resale--you're probably right in that people may not notice that flaw (as we didn't earlier). I guess I was just concerned that someone would ask us (I would likely again sell our home by owner) and I'd have to tell them the truth. It was great, though, to hear that there are at least two kinds of king-sized beds that would be able to get up there without any problem, even though they are more expensive beds. I hadn't even considered that possibility.

It was also helpful to hear that some of you successfully bent your mattress without any problems later with the mattress. I think this is probably the route we'll go with our bed. My plan is to tell our customer care person (whenever he does call me back) about the problem so they can make the necessary adjustments to avoid this problem for future homeowners. I am also going to say that I want him to line up the "three strong men" (the Sears delivery guys also said that's what would be needed to get the mattress bent and up there) to come over to our house to get the mattress upstairs. That way, if they do damage to the ceiling above the stairs or elsewhere, they have to repair it instead of me. Personally, I think the three men hauling it up there should be the architect, project manager, and superintendent. ;)

Anyways, thanks again for your feedback--I really appreciate it!

[ohiomom]

If it can't bend, consider a select comfort or similar. They come in ca king sizes. We love ours and makes moving much easier.
Nicole's Mom 7/03

[workaholic]

A tempurpedic is going to be our next mattress. We are getting ready to build a new home and we decided that we'll probably leave the king size mattress upstairs and just buy a new one.

As for the construction. If your stairs are like ours, the only solution that can be made on the builders behalf is to make higher ceilings downstairs. Which will cost you more in the long run. When they build homes, they build them to the specifications of the plans. Unless it is a custom home, they don't make that many changes. Our other solution would have been to have a slanted floor in the closet that is above the stairs. In other words it's not really the builders fault. My home was a custom built home and there were still flaws. Like with our fridge. It's against the wall on one side, so to get the ice bucket out of the freezer, requires that we remove shelves in order to do so. The door doesn't swing all the way open.

There are so many other things I love though that those details don't matter that much. I'm sure your house is beautiful, I love new homes as much as I love really old ones.

If you ever move, you may want to consider leaving the mattress :).

Aimee
Momma to Cooper
Owner: Ella-Bags

[wendinbill]

I'm so sorry...that has to be so disappointing! I live in an old farmhouse with a really odd staircase. We just bought a Queen size bed last year. We are remodeling our upstairs now-we've never lived up there. Anyhow, we have to bring the Queen mattress in through the ROOF when they add the new dormer! lol!! So, I do feel your pain...

[C99]

Yikes, that sucks. We had a similar problem w/ our 100-year-old home: we only discovered when the movers arrived that our queen boxspring wouldn't fit up the stairs. So we had to get a split. I agree w/ Lori and Karen -- no one will notice the flaw unless you point it out to them. We certainly didn't notice that we needed a split boxspring until we moved in!

[August Mom]

I agree. We have a newer house with a similar stairway problem. We have a Select Comfort and it was easy to take up the stairs. Good luck.