Congratulations! You’ve joined the exciting new trend of ordering mattresses online. Many of the best beds I’ve slept on came to my house in a box. Now, you may be tempted to just sleep on the box without opening it. DO NOT DO THIS!!! No matter how tempting it is to sleep on the box, the unboxed mattress will be much more comfortable and safer. I’ve received dozens of beds to test, and below are my professional tips for how to unbox a mattress.
Move the Box to Your Bedroom
Once the mattress box arrives on your doorstep, slowly wiggledrag it into your home. It would be great if the box had handles, and you know that you could easily make handles, but the box cutters are all the way upstairs, and you kind of want to be angry at the box for being hard to move. The need to be angry also requires you to turn down any offers of help from your significant other.
Once the box is in your home, procrastinate a few days before you open it because you know it’s going to require significant exertion. After the first procrastination period, ask your partner to help you move the box to the third-floor room where you plan on putting the bed. When moving the box proves unwieldy, get fed up, turn away assistance once again, and insist on moving the 113-pound box on your own using an awkward, end-over-end rolling method. Try to act cool while doing this like it isn’t aggravating your chronic lower back pain.
Once the mattress is in the right room, you can begin the second procrastination period. During this time, make plans for opening up the mattress. My plan usually involves telling myself I’ll unbox it in the morning.
Of course, if you are currently sleeping on the floor, you have the motivation to skip the procrastination phases.
Here’s one of our most popular videos where we unbox the Olee Sleep 9 Inch I-Gel Multi Layered Memory Foam Mattress:
Unbox Your Mattress in the Morning
Whether you choose to procrastinate or not, you’ll want to give the mattress as much time as possible to “breathe” before sleeping on it. For most of us, that means unboxing the mattress in the morning. Why do this? Well, let’s say you just spent several days in a car driving cross-country to get away from the law. When you finally get to Mexico, what do you want to do? You want to get out of the car, stretch your legs, and take a nice long pee into the Pacific Ocean.
Well, your mattress has been stuck in a box for days, maybe even weeks, and it wants to stretch its metaphorical legs and take an analogous pee. The mattress needs some time to expand to its full size, and the foam will let off some odors, which I think I’m clever for describing as “the new bed smell.” So, the longer you can give the mattress to “rest” before sleeping on it, the better. This means opening your windows, if possible, to ventilate the room and waiting to put the fitted sheet on until right before bed.
This is one of the first mattresses I unboxed:
Play with Sharp Objects
Let’s open the box. Use your box cutters to cut open one end of the box. Tip the box over onto the firm, supportive foundation where you plan on sleeping on your mattress. I use the Zinus Callie 14 Inch Classic SmartBase Mattress Foundation. Tug, yank, and push the mattress out of the box. The process should look something like a cross between a mother giving birth and a magician pulling a tablecloth out from under a table setting.
Once the plastic-wrapped mattress is on the foundation, the real magic begins. Find the end of the plastic wrap and start yanking at it. You might have to cut along the length of the plastic to get it started.
Unwrap the plastic layer-after-layer by unrolling it. For this, you’ll need to again harness your tablecloth yanking skills. Use a combination of rolling the mattress and yanking the plastic. Engage your core while you do this to protect your back. You may fart from the exertion. If your foundation is too light and you don’t yank right, you’ll also move the frame. This is natural. And, if you’re like me, the frame will bruise your shins.
After an angry minute or two, you should get through the roll of plastic. Now, the painful part begins. You unfold the mattress still sealed in its inner layer of plastic. If the manufacturer didn’t use forethought, the mattress will unfold upside down. So, you have to flip the whole thing, really engaging your core again. God forbid someone hears you passive-aggressively stomping around and offers to help you with this.
Wrapped in Plastic
Now, you’re ready to remove the inner layer of plastic. Some companies give you one of those letter openers that looks like a cute little whale with its mouth open, but where the teeth should be, there’s a sharp blade. Most don’t give you this tool and instead tell you to remove the plastic without using a sharp object since they don’t want you to cut the mattress. However, getting through the plastic without a sharp object is impossible.
When cutting around the mattress, you should use scissors so you don’t accidentally cut the mattress, but if you used a box cutter to open the box, you’re probably going to use the same tool to remove the plastic no matter what I or anyone tells you.
Cut along one length and one width of the bed. You’ll notice immediately that air rushes in. Try to perform the cut quickly because it gets more difficult as the mattress expands. Remove the plastic by pushing as much of the top plastic as possible to the far end of the mattress. Then, lift the corner of the mattress closest to you up with one hand and yank the plastic from underneath with the other. The magician skills and muscles you’ve built up in the previous steps should make this part easier.
Here’s a video of another mattress unboxing:
Clean Up After Yourself, Dammit!
If you’re like my family, you’ll now declare your work done and leave the mattress box and plastic lying around for years. It will become part of your home’s decor. Your six-year-old will spend hours in the box pretending it’s first a spaceship, then a hermit’s shack, and once it breaks down, it’ll be a stairs sled.
Please break the box down and recycle it. Throw the plastic in your trash unless you have a good recycling center nearby that will take it. Don’t put the plastic in the bottom of your trash can because it will get stuck and the sanitation worker will just leave it there in the bottom week after week, and you’ll never have enough room for your serious garbage. If you put the plastic on top, the weight of your other rubbish will push it out when the trash claw comes and empties your can.
And, well, that’s how to unbox a mattress. If you have any questions, please comment below, and I will answer them promptly unless it’s part of your procrastination period. In which case, I’ll take my time.
