What Should I Do With This Mattress Foundation?

I’m thinking about keeping it in my hallway forever.

As regular Billfolders might remember, I bought a new mattress in February after putting it off for months. It cost me $287 for a Sealy Orchard Valley mattress set, plus an $85 delivery fee and a $25 mattress removal fee and $38.11 in taxes.

• How I Bought a Mattress
• I Love My New Mattress

Although I do love my new mattress (see “I Love My New Mattress,” above) I don’t know what to do with the mattress foundation. It came with the mattress set, so I didn’t have the option of not getting it, but I already had a bedframe with a mattress foundation built in.

First I tried putting the mattress foundation on top of the bedframe’s built-in foundation, but that made my bed too high. I can’t store the mattress foundation under the bedframe, because that space is already being used as storage. So I put the mattress foundation in my hallway, where it has remained for the past three months.

What do I do now?

As far as I see it, my options are:

1. Dragging it outside to the Dumpster. That would be wasteful.
2. Dragging it into the back of a Lyft or Dolly that could drive me to the nearest thrift store. That would cost me $20 in Lyft or Dolly fees, but I could give the mattress foundation to someone who needs it. (Or, technically, let the thrift store sell the mattress foundation to someone who needs it.)
3. Selling it on Craigslist. I could be my own thrift store! I might make $20 instead of spending it! I’d have to deal with randos, though—and scheduling, and people who flake at the last minute, and dragging the mattress foundation to my apartment’s parking lot so I wouldn’t have to let some rando into my unit.
4. Advertising it on the local Buy Nothing group. Let’s see if someone in the community wants it! I’d still be dealing with strangers, but with a way lower creep-and-scam factor than Craigslist. I wouldn’t make any money, but I’d be contributing to the sharing economy, and not in a way that involved exploiting people’s labor or anything.
5. Keeping it in case I need it someday. I know where this leads. But it isn’t hoarding, I swear! It’s acknowledging that at some point I may move out of my current apartment and into a place that has room for… well, how would this work, anyway? Would I get rid of my current bedframe and put my mattress and its foundation directly on the floor? Would I buy a different bedframe to better support my mattress and its foundation? I’m really happy with my current bedframe. It has a built-in mattress foundation plus underbed storage space. I don’t see myself getting rid of it, but if I do, I’ll want that mattress foundation.

I’ve thought through a couple additional options, like “turning the mattress foundation into a wall divider to separate my home office from the rest of my living room” and “turning the mattress foundation into an art installation by covering it with inspirational quotes and glittery mirrors and stuff.”

But, when it comes down to it, the only two options I want to pursue are “offering it to the Buy Nothing group, who might not even want it,” and “keeping it in my hallway because I paid for it and I might need it someday.”

I wish my apartment had storage. I’ve heard that all the cool apartment buildings do.

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