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Comment by war1025 | Hacker News Reader

I have no write-up, so probably not a terribly interesting comment. But my wife and I decided to make our own 100% wool mattress several years ago by stitching together five italian officer blankets with wool batting sandwiched between each layer. By far the most comfortable mattress I've ever slept on. We've had it for maybe 5 years now I think.

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How would you rate the firmness and does it breathe? I’d imagine wool would retain body heat quite a bit.

Definitely on the firmer side, but it's like four inches of wool, so its got quite a bit of springiness to it.

As far as heat, we're of the opinion that wool is basically the ideal material. It is breathable, but it matches your body temperature and maintains it pretty well. It wicks the moisture away from you really well.

I don't know how exactly to compare it to other mattresses, but we keep our house at ~60F in the winter and we haven't been running AC in the summers, so our house has been up around 90F with high humidity. It is very comfortable across that whole spectrum.

If you've ever had a pair of high quality wool socks, it's kind of like that. They keep you warm in the winter and keep your feet comfortable and dry in the summer.

What do you wear inside in the winter?

Usually a t-shirt, long sleeve thermal shirt, and a button down shirt on top, then jeans on bottom. Thick socks and probably my slippers for my feet.

I sleep just in my boxers, but we put another italian officers blanket and a thick quilt on our bed to keep things toasty.

> we haven't been running AC in the summers, so our house has been up around 90F with high humidity. It is very comfortable across that whole spectrum.

Everyone is different, but I can’t imagine anything remotely comfortable about sleeping in 90° heat with high humidity. Having recently had to spend a few weeks “sleeping” (more like constant restlessness) in a bedroom in the lower 80s, that just sounds like hell.

It's mostly a matter of stubbornness. Plus your body can get used to a lot of things if you let it. Probably overnight it would get down to around 80F as well.

Today its about 65F, which is quite pleasant. I've found it makes me appreciate these days more.

I would like to do the same! Could you please provide more detail on sourcing materials and the construction?

> I have no write-up, so probably not a terribly interesting comment.

That would require a write-up.

I'd be very interested in a write up as well!

We basically bought 5 Italian Officer blankets off Ebay (They are roughly the size of a queen bed), and then a bunch of wool batting from a website that sells pre-made wool mattresses, but also just bulk wool.

I think I looked into it recently and we spent something like $700 on materials.

But then you just put down the first blanket, lay down a layer of the batting (I don't remember for sure, but I think it maybe came in queen size bats already from where we bought it), and then repeat.

We stitched around the outsize with yarn using a baseball-style stitch to keep everything sort of fixed in place.

Here's a picture: https://files.slack.com/files-pri/T03KPRY1A-FBT1180P5/wool_b...

Does the batting material between the bottom layers matter?

Well we just made it ourselves sort of on a whim, so I can't tell you one way or the other. It's just how we did it.

With 5 blankets and batting in between, how stiff is the mattress? Can you roll it up or is it pretty inflexible?

I've never tried to actually roll it, but you can fold it in half pretty easily. Folding it half again would probably be doable, but I think that's about as small as you would get it. Rolling it might work better, but I've never had a reason to I guess.

We do flip the mattress every couple months, so there isn't really a definitive "bottom".

Is that what it looks like now? Or are there 4 more layers of that, and if so can we see a picture of that?

Is it propped on anything?

That is how it looked when we first made it, so its a bit more worn in by now. The reason it looks like there are only two layers is because of how we stitched it and how the excess batting was spilling out past the blankets a bit.

We just keep it on the floor. I know that's supposed to be not ideal, but its how we do it.

Wool mattress are actually really good. They are natural, breathe easy, no allergens and you don't need to clean it. You just air/shake it out once in a while.

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