i made my own bed, now i’ll happily sleep in it!

i didn’t set out to make my own mattress. but look at me now, the ultimate diy’er! after 27 years of sleeping on the same mattress, it was time for a new bed. an explosion of mattress types and options happened over the three decades since i’d last purchased. now, with too many choices to consider, i knew i wanted something firm yet healthier for myself and the environment.

during my extensive research, it was quickly apparent that the chemically-treated mattresses i found myself wanting to avoid were more carefully hidden within their eco-conscious counterparts. environmentally-friendly mattresses, at least in the u.s.a., are still required to meet federal flammability requirements. did you know, that the dept. of agriculture allows the term “organic” to be used on mattresses, even if it’s only a portion of the mattress components are certified organic? and even if the other mattress components are not organic and processed using harmful chemicals? (if you read this consumer reports article, please read the comments section as well.) my biggest takeaway about “natural” and “organic” mattresses being sold (at least in the u.s.a.), never mind they are quite expensive, but they still are off-gassing and chemically-treated, despite what is being advertised and told to you by the salesperson..

yet somewhere in my research, buckwheat hull mattresses were brought up as the unsung, environmentally-friendly answer. which got me thinking: why not make my own mattress? at least i’d know exactly what was and wasn’t in it.

fortunately, i didn’t need to re-invent the wheel. thanks to the internet, i quickly discovered you can make your own buckwheat hull mattress and it wasn’t terribly complicated, either. i’d owned a buckwheat hull neck pillow for years and had loved how it was squishy yet supportive. my new mattress, i realized, would provide the same characteristics. my online search presented openyoureyesbedding.com (oyeb), a environmentally-sustainable focused diy’er in new york who had made her own buckwheat hull mattress years ago. she was so pleased with the results, she now offers kits and instructions so like-minded individuals can make their own, too, no sewing skills required. i also encourage you to read her blog about her mattress flammability test experience she was required to do before she could officially launch her business model. it’s fascinating reading!

basically, making your own buckwheat hull mattress is a system of filling stretchy knit tubes with a set amount of hulls, to create large pods, which when placed together, create your mattress base.

one of the things i loved about making my own mattress, was the control it offered depending on what one’s holy grail items were e.g. affordability and/or organically-focused. while oyeb offers fabric tubes in organic cotton, i elected to make mine using stretchy, polyester medical cast bandages i bought on amazon. three boxes of bandages came to $90 and were a fraction of the cost for organic cotton tubes ($193 for a full mattress kit). also, i felt comfortable choosing non-organic buckwheat hulls from oyeb, as non-organic was again, much cheaper per pound (organic $3/lb, and non-organic $2.35/lb, respectively). shipping adds a bit to the bottom line (ground ups delivery) and my research discovered, the buckwheat hull supplier for wholesalers/resellers within the u.s.a. was via canada. interestingly, oyeb also had the best price on both organic and non-organic hulls, even with the shipping cost included. a local herbalist could have special-ordered buckwheat hulls for me, but the final price still would have been over $100 more than buying them, with shipping, from oyeb.

this is another website that i found helpful when both researching and putting my mattress together. while waiting for my 175 lbs of non-organic buckwheat hulls to arrive, i set about preparing my supplies and getting the bedroom ready.

i cut down my cast bandages into 6 ft. long sections.

a gorgeous, second-hand, shabby chic, french provincial-style headboard and curved foot board were scored within my neighborhood on craigslist for a song!

a clean, second-hand box spring purchased from portland’s oldest new & used mattress shop (and in a full-circle moment, where i purchased my very first used mattress & box spring when i first moved out on my own in 1990) helped continue to keep our intentions sustainably-focused.

the buckwheat hulls are packaged in 35 lb. bags. it goes without saying that the ups man was not pleased with me the day my five boxes arrived at our house.

but i do have to say, there is something very satisfying about running your hand and fingers through the hulls! they are also more lightweight than you’d think, too.

to assemble the mattress meant i needed to tie a knot at the end of each one of my knit tubes and fill it up with 5 lbs of buckwheat hulls. i measured out where half a pound worked out to on my large pyrex liquid measuring cup (6 cup line), then scooped that amount out ten times to make the five pounds. because i lost track of my count the first time i tried to put a pod together, i had to dump it out and start all over again. but the second time, i used ten glass pebbles to keep track of where i was with my measuring count. at the same time, i ended up accidentally spilling buckwheat hulls on the floor when trying to pour hulls into the tube fabric. oops! i scooped up what i could off the floor, then vacuumed up what wasn’t worth salvaging. (it didn’t help matters that our kitchen area rug is the same color as the hulls!)

once i had a pod filled, i untied the bottom end, laid it on it’s side, then patted and tapped my hulls into a firm, fat bundle into the middle of the fabric, tying the fabric ends into an over knot. each bundle was placed, knot side down, upon a flat sheet atop the box spring. it also helped to assemble everything within the bedroom, too.

by the time i was 1/3rd of the way through filling my knit tubes, i hit a filling/counting rhythm. mr. dearie, seeing my rudimentary counting system with the glass pebbles, thought this was ridiculous and had me just weigh my buckwheat bundle on our kitchen scale until it reached the magical 5 lbs 6 oz (combined buckwheat hulls/knit tube casing weight). he was right, that was much, much easier - and quicker, too!

once all your buckwheat pods are in place, you take additional lengths of fabric tubes, knot an end through the knot at the bottom of a pod row and thread the fabric through the knotted bundle columns, zigzagging between two rows of pods so they are secured to each other. it creates an overlapping, organic line while keeping everything together as a unit.

because oyeb noted on their instruction guide that a full mattress may come up 2 inches short once completed, i decided to do an extra row of six, 2 lb. bundles and pat each into oblong shape and fill the gap between the headboard and the rest of the pods.

to continue our focus on sustainability, all my “new-to-me bedding” is pre-owned and purchased off ebay, including a fitted ditsy floral sheet over the mattress pods. the lovely and feminine motif’s are primarily retired prints from the shabby chic couture line by rachel ashwell. some are from her exclusive target line, others from her boutique, but i love how they all mix and match beautifully, just like my mash-up and super mash-up dresses do, too. and i have to confess, my favorite element of my bedding is the little ruffle around the side edges of the duvet covers, reminding me the hems of my beloved flag pants!

mr. dearie calls this, in the best way possible, my princess bed, and it really, truly is - i adore every single thing about it!

i ended up having 23lbs of hulls leftover, so i made a pillow insert with some lavender harvested from the garden last summer and using this pretty 14 x 17 inch shabby chic pillowcase i purchased second-hand on ebay. the other remaining hulls will be used to make future buckwheat hull pillow gifts for friends and family.

what is it like sleeping on a buckwheat hull mattress? it is a different experience. this not a bed you leap onto like you would a foam or spring mattress! its quite firm, overall. when you climb into bed, you are supposed to “shimmy” your body into the pods so they can conform to your shape. i did notice right away, after my first night sleeping on it, that i didn’t have pain points in my hips (i’m primarily a side-sleeper) as i’ve had sleeping on a traditional mattress. really, though, it feels like i’m sleeping on a very firm bean bag mattress. and if you think about it, buckwheat hulls are the ultimate sustainable “bean bag” fill material! it’s also nice to know that if i want to loosen up the pod knots, i can, to allow more of a squish factor than it currently has.

because this is new to me, i’ll share an update in a future missive about how my buckwheat hull mattress is holding up and how it feels to sleep on after a longer period of time. in the meantime, any other questions about my mattress adventure, please ask, i’m more than happy to answer them for you!