The Great American Trundle Bed Race – Part 2

In case you missed it, this is part two of the Great American Trundle Bed Race posted last month. So at seven days to go before Christmas last year, a visit from the two daughters looming on the horizon, I was well into our last-minute project to build a trundle bed for the guest bedroom.  OK, OK, I’d barely started cutting the wood.  I was starting to sweat bullets over the whole project.

Acceptable Short Cuts

Since I’d decided on beaded panels as a good way to coordinate with the rest of the house, I could now take advantage of ready-made beaded 8 X 4 panels made out of MDF, available at our nearby lumber yard.  No shaper, no router, no lost time.  Ergo, a good decision.

It’s All In the Details

I double checked everything – plans don’t know which mattress you’re using so they can’t know how tall a set of wheels you need, for example.  Are you on carpet or hardwood?  Hardwood floors let the wheels roll easier, so you don’t need a tall set of wheels for the trundle.  The guest bedroom has hardwood floors, so smaller wheels will work.  It’s all in the details.

Counting Down

Days six, five, and four before Christmas… Did I mention details before?  It’s been raining for two days so the finish isn’t drying as fast as I would like.  I need at least a day for off gassing, minimum.  The daughters have way too acute a sense of smell, of you ask me, but no one is.

Maybe their flights will be delayed because of weather.  I check the flight status.  All flights from New York expected to be on time.  Great.

Three Days to Go

But wait – a ray of sunshine – “we” tells me the mattresses have come in, so we can stop worrying about getting them on time, and they can be picked up by someone this evening!  I look around, there is no one else in the room, and “we” is smiling.

Two Days

I haul the bed home in a truck borrowed from the shop.  The pieces are heavy.  No way can “we” and I get the parts into the house without help.  Turns out my next door neighbor’s daughters are visiting – one of whom was the girl-next-door from whom I stole borrowed skate wheels about four decades ago for my first homemade skateboard.  So I call over, ask if they can help, and the four of us middle aged men and women carry the pieces up the side yard and around to the back and into the guest bedroom, piece by piece.

I assemble the bed and admire my work.  I love the smell of paint in the evening!  Feeling triumphant, I take the protective cover off the first mattress, drop it into the trundle, and – oh crap – can you believe that it doesn’t fit?  Seems “we” let the store dude measure the mattresses and give her the numbers – which of course were the numbers I used as a basis for every measurement in this trundle bed.

No problem, these are but mere details!

Day Uno

Ann conducts a new round of online research for new mattresses and places an order for new ones from a different store, where thank god they’re in stock.  She then sets out that afternoon to return the ones we bought.   We now have a great new plan in place – while she’s driving to the airport tomorrow to pick up the girls, I’ll go to the new store (which given its location is more of a day trip than a trip to the store, by the way) and buy the new mattresses.

Time’s Up!

“We” is on her way to the airport.  I’ve driven maybe a tad over the speed limit, purchased the new mattresses, loaded them up, roared back to the house, and dragged the first mattress into the house and down the hall.  I go to pull out the trundle – but wait!  What’s this?  “We” seem to have put down an unauthorized throw rug in front of my trundle.  Remember that well-thought-out detail about wheel height?  Yeah…

Too late now to worry about wheels.  Hell, two people ought to be able to pull this sucker out, no problem – they’re sisters after all!   Work together!

I get both mattresses in, unwrap them, and drop them into the bed.  I put on mattress pads, sheets, pillows.  How far along Pacific Coast Highway are they by now?  I put on the blankets, even get the quilt down, all neat and tidy.  I still don’t hear the slam of car doors.  It’s done.  Looks good.  Sweet.

The Last Detail

The phone rings.  I pick it up, and it’s my mother, calling from Hawaii.  Seems word has travelled fast, via my next door neighbor no doubt (a lifelong friend of my mother’s), and Mom wants to talk to me about this little endeavor of Ann’s and mine.  “A brand new trundle bed that you built yourself!” she pipes!  I start to glow with pride – until Mom asks indignantly, “A trundle bed?  What were you thinking?  Just where do your father and I sleep when we come to visit?!?”

It’s all in the details…