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Change of Plans
Dec. 2nd, 2023 07:48 pmSeveral years ago (I forget exactly how many now), I bought K a new bed for her room. It was a marvel of a bed, with a trundle bed beneath and drawers for storage and not too large so that there was more space in the room with the twin bed than with the queen bed it had replaced.
About a year ago (maybe a bit more), K managed to break the bed. This appears to have been the result of jumping on the bed rather harder than was intended. The support that held the slats up on one side of the bed broke, causing the mattress to sway in an alarming trench shape.
This would have been easier to deal with had I been informed of the problem with the bed on a timely basis. I wasn't. As a result, the mattress collapsed more and more until it was pretty much a complete loss. And I contemplated fixing the support, but I couldn't find the time to do it.
Recently, I decided that Something Had To Be Done About The Bed. I called Sam and asked if he could help me put this mess back together. He said "Sure!" and he and Bonnie came by today to help reconstruct the bed frame so that I could then purchase and put an intact mattress on top of it.
The state of the bed frame appeared to be substantially worse than it had been the last time I looked at it. We decided that rather than trying to glue and screw the old support back into place, the best thing to do would be to get a couple of pieces of wood at Home Depot and just completely replace the old supports. So off to Home Depot Sam and I went, returning with wood and screws.
We removed the sadly decayed mattress. And then we took out the slats, many of which were not where they were supposed to be, because the support didn't. I looked at the dust that had accumulated on the trundle bed and got out the vacuum cleaner and then stripped the sheets off of both mattresses and handed them to K to be washed. I also swept out the mess behind the bed and called K up to sort it out, because it was impressive and not my problem.
We took the screws out of the failed support and discovered that it was not only screwed, but also glued to the side panel. The glue in the center section of the support had just not been up to the task. At all.
Sam suggested that the only way to deal with this would be to remove the side panel to make it easier to get at the support. I reluctantly agreed, so the side panel was removed and taken to my bedroom where there was more room to work. Sam and I tried several different approaches to get the rest of the support off, none of which were working.
And it was about this time that the realization set in. Salvaging this bed was a fool's errand, because we were going to spend a stupid amount of time trying to fix it and it would then find another failure mode, because trying to fix it was just going to cause it to be further damaged.
I went on Amazon. After consultations with K, I have now ordered a new metal bed platform that at least *appears* sturdy from Amazon, along with a mattress in a box that looks decent. Both of these are going to be delivered to my door this week for a total price of a bit more than $200, which beats anything that I was able to find locally, none of which could have been obtained today anyway. (I used to be able to go over to Sam's Club and buy a twin-sized mattress and box spring, but those days are gone.)
K will spend the next week sleeping on the trundle bed. Next Thursday, I will decide what pieces of the current pile are firewood and which are garbage.
And then next week, when the new bed is (I hope!) in place and working, I can decide how best to dispose of the trundle bed.
The good news side effect of all this is that K's room is now much cleaner than it was.
The bad news is that there is a dead mattress where the Christmas tree is supposed to go...
About a year ago (maybe a bit more), K managed to break the bed. This appears to have been the result of jumping on the bed rather harder than was intended. The support that held the slats up on one side of the bed broke, causing the mattress to sway in an alarming trench shape.
This would have been easier to deal with had I been informed of the problem with the bed on a timely basis. I wasn't. As a result, the mattress collapsed more and more until it was pretty much a complete loss. And I contemplated fixing the support, but I couldn't find the time to do it.
Recently, I decided that Something Had To Be Done About The Bed. I called Sam and asked if he could help me put this mess back together. He said "Sure!" and he and Bonnie came by today to help reconstruct the bed frame so that I could then purchase and put an intact mattress on top of it.
The state of the bed frame appeared to be substantially worse than it had been the last time I looked at it. We decided that rather than trying to glue and screw the old support back into place, the best thing to do would be to get a couple of pieces of wood at Home Depot and just completely replace the old supports. So off to Home Depot Sam and I went, returning with wood and screws.
We removed the sadly decayed mattress. And then we took out the slats, many of which were not where they were supposed to be, because the support didn't. I looked at the dust that had accumulated on the trundle bed and got out the vacuum cleaner and then stripped the sheets off of both mattresses and handed them to K to be washed. I also swept out the mess behind the bed and called K up to sort it out, because it was impressive and not my problem.
We took the screws out of the failed support and discovered that it was not only screwed, but also glued to the side panel. The glue in the center section of the support had just not been up to the task. At all.
Sam suggested that the only way to deal with this would be to remove the side panel to make it easier to get at the support. I reluctantly agreed, so the side panel was removed and taken to my bedroom where there was more room to work. Sam and I tried several different approaches to get the rest of the support off, none of which were working.
And it was about this time that the realization set in. Salvaging this bed was a fool's errand, because we were going to spend a stupid amount of time trying to fix it and it would then find another failure mode, because trying to fix it was just going to cause it to be further damaged.
I went on Amazon. After consultations with K, I have now ordered a new metal bed platform that at least *appears* sturdy from Amazon, along with a mattress in a box that looks decent. Both of these are going to be delivered to my door this week for a total price of a bit more than $200, which beats anything that I was able to find locally, none of which could have been obtained today anyway. (I used to be able to go over to Sam's Club and buy a twin-sized mattress and box spring, but those days are gone.)
K will spend the next week sleeping on the trundle bed. Next Thursday, I will decide what pieces of the current pile are firewood and which are garbage.
And then next week, when the new bed is (I hope!) in place and working, I can decide how best to dispose of the trundle bed.
The good news side effect of all this is that K's room is now much cleaner than it was.
The bad news is that there is a dead mattress where the Christmas tree is supposed to go...