I'm mattress shopping today. Our Sugar Beach condo is getting a new mattress! All four of our condos have California (Cal) king beds, and quite frankly, I didn't know what that meant specifically. I assumed a Cal king bed was larger than a regular king bed, and I did know not to buy regular king sheets for my Cal king beds.
Today I learned a little trivia.
A regular ('Eastern') king bed is 16 inches wider than a queen bed. It is the same length as a queen bed (dimensions 76x80 inches). A Cal King bed is only 12 inches wider than a queen bed, but instead it is 4 inches longer than a queen bed (dimensions 72x84 inches). I personally like the longer mattress, as my feet hang off the end of a regular king/queen mattress (but not with a Cal king). Here is a handy chart with all North American mattress sizes.
My friendly sales man had more trivia for me (I'm not sure about the accuracy, but it's a good story). In the '70s water beds were quite popular. However, they weren't popular with landlords who started forbidding water beds (I imagine because of water leaks). So, according to my sales man, the water bed manufacturers got together with the mattress manufacturers and asked if they would consider making a mattress to fit in a water bed frame. The mattress companies did, and the end result was a new mattress size with the Cal king dimensions, and water bed owners didn't have to replace their bed frames but could just buy the new mattress. Again, as per my sales man, they sold a lot of these Cal king mattresses in California, and so that's how the name was born.
So now you know!Labels: condo, Kihei Surfside 405, Maui Kamaole I-103, Palms at Wailea 503, Sugar Beach 104
