Instead of a waterbed, how about a sand bed?

My friend, Mrs. Homegrown of Root Simple, looks at sleep mattresses filled with sand.

Recently a friend and frequent Root Simple commenter who goes by the handle "P" here, sent us an intriguing note. Like us, she lives in the Los Angeles area, and like us, she's been obsessed with the idea of a mattress alternative for a while. Then she got a lead on an exciting bed option, and she shared it with us, saying basically, "I know this couple that you have to meet. They've made a bed out of sand!"

So we went to meet Michael Garcia and Stephanie Wing-Garcia and their sand mattress. They live just a few minutes from our house, in a big, sunny apartment full of beautiful things-and they sleep on a king sized bed which consists of a low wooden platform, a pair of twin-sized canvas mattress casings filled with ground white marble sand, which in turn are topped by an inch thick natural latex mat and a layer of sheepskin.

They love their bed. The idea for it came them in a flash of inspiration, and it has changed their lives. Stephanie credits the bed with healing the excruciating chronic back pain which she'd been suffering from for seven years.