good GOD, or "very small paraphrased tribute to paula abdul"

as in, I take two steps forward and then two steps back.

I really don't mean to be so negative. I swear. sometimes, though, I really have no choice.

the mattress. it was a fiasco.

on the plus side, bella slept reasonably well. we had oceans of room between sean and I and bella had plenty of room to maneuver. she actually slept longways between us for a good part of the night.

but holy shit, the drama. the goal was to have a larger bed that was closer to the ground in case bella rolled off the side. the pieces of the puzzle were as follows: we had one king sized mattress, one "king" sized set of slats from ikea (which were actually 2 sets of twin slats) that are to be used instead of a boxspring or foundation, one bed frame that doesn't accommodate king sized mattresses, and one twin boxspring from trent's bed that he no longer uses. it was my intent to somehow find the best and/or cheapest and/or easiest way to figure out what pieces of the puzzle were missing to complete the picture of a beautiful new king sized bed in our bedroom.

my first thought was to simply buy another twin sized boxspring to pair with the one we have, and to place them on the floor, and put the mattress on top. so I called a local furniture place that sells mattresses fairly cheap, and asked if they had one. of course, the guy wants to sell me more (which is an interesting byproduct of shopping locally - the local businesses are starved for customers and want to squeeze every drop out of anyone who buys) and asks me what kind of bed I have, et cetera. I did find out that a boxspring is different than a foundation, in that it, oddly, has springs - and that it is significantly more expensive than a foundation. I finally get off the phone with him and call sean and ask him to run over and get a foundation. he calls me from the place - seems that king sized foundations are in fact twins that are slightly longer, as king mattresses are slightly longer than twin. fuuuuuuck.

plan b - don't buy another foundation, buy a king sized bed frame and use the ikea slats we have on it to create a foundation. so sean buys a $50 frame and brings it home. and we're done!

juuuust kidding.

so I go up and put it together. it takes FOR EVER. I get it all into place and then get the first set of twin-sized slats on the frame. the problem is, the frame has crossarms that don't extend all the way to the end of the frame itself. it leaves about 5 inches of frame without a crossarm. so there's nothing to support a slat for 5 inches at either the top or bottom. okay, I figure we can live with that. so I go to put on the other side's slats and find that THEY OVERLAP. by about 1/4". and there are so many slats that they can't alternate on the middle frame. it sounds complicated but trust me when I say there's no way it was going to work.

plan c - bite the bullet and buy 2 "twin" long foundations from the furniture store, which closes in 15 mins. except sean forgot to mention that they don't HAVE any of those in stock and that they won't get them for a week. but they will allow us to return the bed frame. so I go upstairs, resigned to my fate, and try to put the frame back into the tiny box it came in.

many years later, I screamed and finally gave up and left it for sean to deal with (sorry sean) and put the slats directly on the floor, with the mattress on top of them.

3 things were apparent. one was that the bed was HUGE and some furniture rearranging was definitely in order. which, now that we have carpet, is difficult. the second was that the bed was REALLY low. like, while laying on it, I couldn't see my alarm clock on top of my nightstand. (which made for a lovely 10 minute delay in my getting to work today, because I refused to have my alarm clock on the floor.) it also made getting in and out of bed for us big folk extremely difficult. I am happy to report, though, that the littlest of us loved it. that being the dog, who couldn't get up on the bed herself before, and bella, who thought it was really cool to run onto the bed and off it again.

the third thing didn't really strike me until the middle of the night, but even at that first lie-down on the mattress, I had a feeling it was coming. it's not as comfortable as the one in the showroom.

in fact, it doesn't feel at all as comfortable as the one in the showroom.

I keep telling myself that it'll break in and feel wonderful, and the room it gives should more than make up for the comfort. and that I can get a foam egg crate thingie, or use the foam thing I already had that is full-sized (and I guess sean is screwed. in bed! how apropos.)

I'm not sure what tonight's slumber will bring. I just hope that next week, I'll tell you that everything is fine, and we have a bed we love.