How To Set-Up A Bed In A Box
Do you need help finding the best king-sized mattress or have you wanted to try a mattress in a box? Come along with us as we show you how to set-up the Casper Wave Hybrid mattress and get our honest review.
*Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. Read our full privacy policy.
Just to note this post is not sponsored and we are just normal people going into furniture and mattress stores. Here is our real-life Casper Wave Hybrid bed buying experience.
Are Casper hybrid mattresses worth it?
Yes! We are very happy with our mattress purchase. The mattress is soft enough but you feel the support. My husband and I also have not felt hot or overheated at all.
We did not get the snow technology add-on and I am glad we just trusted the normal cooling technology.
Our purchase
We upgraded to a King-sized mattress. Therefore we also needed to figure out the platform, bed frame and more.
We ended up purchasing the Casper metal bed frame and foundation (as well as this headboard from Wayfair).
Casper Foundation Tips
Do you hate bed skirts? One of my favorite parts of this bedding bundle or system is the foundation. It doesn’t look like your typical box spring. With our duvet cover, you don’t even need to do something else unless the metal frame really bothers you. We like the clean look of the simple foundation instead of an ugly box spring.
If you already have a metal bed frame or platform bed there is no reason to purchase this. You can also just get the mattress and place it on a platform bed. We thought about that option, but are happy with the route we took.
How To Set Up The Foundation and Metal Bed Frame
It was pretty easy to set up the base before the mattresses. The bed frame was relatively easy to set up and probably took around 20 minutes.
The harder part for us was when we attached our own headboard and still had to put that together. We weren’t sure of how these items would come in the mail. The bed frame and the foundation came in long boxes.

Be careful as each of these boxes was pretty heavy and you may want to have two people help move them around.
You can easily set-up the bed frame by following the instructions.

Open the foundation box. Connect four sides with easy clasps.

Once the foundation is on the metal frame the rest wood slates on it.

It took two of us to make sure that the slates were even and ready for the mattress.

Once your base is put together, unbox the mattress and follow their guidelines to get the plastic off. Since ours was a king-sized mattress, it was pretty heavy.
Read the manual that comes with the mattress. They will suggest placing it on its side off the bed. Of course, we didn’t read the manual, so we made it probably harder than it was. Soon we will have a video showing our whole process so you can learn from our mistakes.

Note: I am pretty much just summarizing what the Casper salesmen were telling us and our experience as we were shopping with our whole family. We were a little overwhelmed with trying to feel the difference between the two mattresses while comparing to other mattresses we were considering at the time.
What does a Casper mattress look like in the box?

You can see from the above images that our king-sized Casper mattress came in a box that was about 3 ft high and the mattress was rolled up inside. When you pull the mattress out you can see that the plastic is compressing it.

After the plastic is off you can see how the mattress starts to inflate. You hear it happening.


Where can you purchase Casper mattresses?
Make sure when you are shopping for a Casper mattress that you are comparing the same models. You may think you are getting a better price, but it might not be the same actual mattress.
- Direct-purchase from Casper
- Check Price On Amazon
- Check Price On Target
- Bed, Bath and Beyond Online
Note About Direct
We were very happy with our direct-purchase from Casper. They were quick to respond to any questions and were willing to give us a price adjustment when a new sale appeared. Not to mention, I think we were able to score the best price directly from them.
Tips To Find The Best Price
We thought when we were shopping on Black Friday and Cyber Monday that those would have been the best deals. I believe they were 15% off the hybrid bundles. I did my research and found that they always have up to 20% off for teachers, the military, and healthcare. Use this link to take you to the promo code page (it took me a minute to find it easily on their site).
All you have to do is verify your status through ID.me (which a lot of stores use to look up your teaching license, etc). I was able to get the 20% off our bundle and felt pretty good about myself.
Look For Bundle Deals
The next week or two before our mattress had even shipped, Casper ended up having a 25% off bundles. On a long shot, I kindly emailed customer service and asked about a price adjustment since I could see that our mattress hadn’t shipped yet. At first, the customer service person told me my mattress had just shipped and I thought that was the end of the price adjustment question.
The next day I received an email saying my credit card would be credited the 5% difference. I was super pumped that a simple email did the trick and kudos to Casper for their customer service on that one.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Each part was shipped to our home
- The foundation looks nicer than expected (honestly considering replacing other box springs in our house)
- Shipped to our house
- 100-day sleep trial
- 10-year warranty
- Customer service was amazing! Easily and quickly responded to all inquiries
- Comfort level increased. The bed has been comfortable for both my husband and I and we sleep in different positions
- The headboard fit metal frame easily without needing a bedframe adjustor
- We were able to install all parts of the bed ourselves relatively easily
Cons
- The king-sized mattress was pretty heavy. If you are nervous about this it would be worth it to pay Casper to set everything up for you.
- Discrepancy on the arrival date (4 days late)
- You have to air out the mattress for a night before sleeping on it due to a slight odor and to have it fully “inflate”.
- Don’t expect your mattress to look exactly like their promo pictures. The cover is super soft but isn’t completely tight. However, we do not notice once your protector and other items are on your bed.

Cheaper Alternative
If the price is concerning then the Casper original may just do the trick or check out this Sealy foam hybrid mattress we just purchased for our guest room at a fraction of the price of the Casper hybrids.
This mattress does seem to be a little less supportive but still seems pretty good in our book. We plan to write a full review on that mattress later!
How much did our Casper Hybrid Wave Bundle cost?
Remember that they were able to give me a price adjustment for the sale they were running at 25% off bundles. Remember that if you are a military member, educator or healthcare worker you can always get up to 20% off through this page.
Here is the breakdown of our purchases after the extra price adjustment I received due to a sale they had going on!
- King-sized mattress $2,471.25
- King Metal Bed Frame $111.75
- King Foundation $299.25
- King Mattress Protector $81.75
- King Casper Pillow $63.75
Free shipping was also included.
While doing research, some sites suggested that the original Casper mattress is similar enough and not worth spending the money on the hybrids. If that is true, then it may be worth trying the middle-of-the-road-priced mattress instead of the more expensive one we went with.

FAQs about our bed in a box experience
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