Fail. Queen-sized, king-sized fail.

Eyjafjallajökull, I need you. I’m looking skyward and, despite best wishes, YVR’s inbound air traffic continues to arrive. Our house guests land in mere hours. I can’t wait to see them – but I rather hoped to treat them to our first home. Surely an extra 24 hours’ work would make all the difference – bridging a Delhi-style gap from expectation to (flawed) execution?

Because we’re stupid, over-eager and largely unrealistic, we’ve got 3 guests coming to stay in our 1-bedroom apartment. That’s 2 in the bedroom, 1 on the couch & 2 more camped in the living room on a spare mattress. 140 square feet per person. Co-zy.

For those keeping score – we’ve slept in our brand new bedroom only 1 night ourselves and will now donate it to our guests’ use for the next 10 days. We’re actual breathing saints. A new bedroom and soaring occupancy rates meant the perfect time for a brand new bed and mattress. Westin offers guests its Heavenly Bed – we provide the It’s-Hell-Everywhere-But-In-Here experience. Not too dissimilar.

A new bed!

A grown-up’s mattress from a grown-up’s pay cheque! What better time to cash-in on a certain feeling of deservedness? No question in either of our minds: king bed or bust. A noble goal for noble people – and yet this tale lacks every sort of happy ending.

Plan A: Build the bed?

We’d planned to splash out on a nice mattress, and make the bed frame – our inaugural foray into Ana White’s frugal world. It now seems that making-your-own-furniture-just-to-save money requires 2 things I lack: 1) time, 2) “not an apartment” to build it in.

Plan B: Ikea Mandal bed?

Blue and yellow lures us back like cheap crack:

“Why don’t we get an Ikea bed this year – and sell it when we move?”

Despite initiating divorce proceedings with Ikea – a cheap, flat-packed bed frame just made sense. Fired up the Macbook – not realizing Mr. “I-Look-So-Poncy-With-My-Pretentious-iPad” was finger-swiping his way to the same destination.

“How about Mandal?”

We both offered at the same second. Easy decision! Under-bed storage – and another sad, practical thoughts – made 4 square reasons to bring Mandal home. A vast improvement for a small apartment from a mattress + box spring. Mandal, meet my ugly baby – off to Ikea!

Plan C: Ikea Trondheim bed?

…. Mandal only comes in queen. I take the matter up with an Ikea Man.

“What, ever?”

“Yes ever.”

“So … there’s no king size?”

“No, only queen.”

“Not even at a different store?”

“Sorry, no.”

“Sorry, no” is Canadian for “please fuck off before I punch you”.

We threw ourselves down on the closest display bed – Trondheim. Noticed with concern when it violently wobbled. King-sized dreams gave way to normal-sized ones. Could we make do with a queen? Is this a queen? Isn’t it, like, only 3” bigger than a double on both sides? Would it be worth it if we got one of those crazy bowling ball mattresses?

Plan D: Ikea Trondheim, queen size bed?

I guess a queen would be cheaper, both bed & mattress?

I don’t like it.

Me either.

So we’ll still get a king mattress and make a bed frame.

Ok.

Or we could look elsewhere for a cheap king frame? Maybe Sears or somewhere?

Paolo hates Sears’ furniture department. It smells like fake cows in there. Other than Craigslist, I couldn’t think of anywhere we could get a reasonably priced bed, quickly. Really quickly. And we didn’t have time to play the Craigslist game. And we definitely didn’t have time to make one.

Back to Mandal Plan B, via Plan A

I looked over at Mandal again. Tiny bastard. On second thought, it wouldn’t even go. Mandal’s modern. It would clash with the floor. Forget it.

Plan E: Ikea Malm bed? 

Malm? Na. Clashes with our room.

Plan F: Ikea Trondheim for real?

Trondheim, Trondheim, Trondheim. Yellow walls, lovely floor, nice crisp white moulding. Maybe a white bed on legs would be a way better choice!

We pulled Trondheim to pieces (well, all but) as well as its store-next-door-neighbour [something that starts with A]. As routinely polite Canadians, you might think we’d struggle to get down and dirty underneath Ikea’s bed frame displays. Not so – the two girls in the next-door display had actually climbed into the bed (under the covers and everything) to read Us Weekly. They looked cheap. (The beds – not the girls). Fair enough, Ikea is cheap. But did the screws really have to show?

Trondheim looks far better in the photo above than in real life – the floor models were wonky and didn’t look very strong. They weren’t real wood – and I hate particleboard.

Abort all plans

There’s no point buying a temporary solution.

Nah.

So what’s the other option?

Dunno.

Well, let’s forget this.

Fled the burbs & went home. The thought of the queen bed was stuck in our minds. So we immediately wiki-ed the difference. Paolo cleverly taped the three bed sizes out on the floor.

King beds… are huge. With our bedside tables tucked side-by-side… there was absolutely no wall space left at all. I don’t know much of anything about design, but wall-to-wall furniture seems a bad idea. So it had to be a queen. But from where?

Delete Plan A: no one builds a bed in an apartment

Back to Knock-Off Wood. Love the Farmhouse Bed. No time to make it and – more to the point – no space in which to make it. Sometimes I forget we live in an apartment. The rest of the world isn’t set up for your tiny demands. Platform beds? No time, no time, no time. Were we rushing ourselves into a big decision just to please guests? Totally.

Plan H is for Help us. Please.

We talked ourselves out of Ikea Trondheim, and into one that starts with an A. Which is exactly like Trondheim, but slightly less shitty.  Neither of us loved it, but, with time, we might like it. Solid rationale. Back to Ikea. Yup, the same freaking day. It’s now almost closing time. The tag on Bed A told us to seek the associate’s help: a 20-minute wait for the same guy from earlier.

“Hi. Me again. Do I pick up, um, Aspelund downstairs?”

“Sorry, no. It’s special order.”

Sorry. No. I knew better than to ask twice. We rolled our eyes fifty times over on the dejected slump past the meatballs and down the stairs.

Fail. Queen-sized fail. King-sized fail. Farmhouse fail. Fail, fail, fail.

So, beloved house guests, you’re sleeping on a mattress on the floor. You will inspect our pristine laminate bedroom floor the minute you wake up and you will inhale VOC-free air as you fall asleep. And you will like it.

###

Thanks to all the ugly baby lovers who keep clicking on the blog beaver, voting for me in ‘Canada’s Best New Blog’. You’re delightful creatures & I thank you.

###

Photo credit to fridgeirsson via Flickr Creative Commons

Hey, you want a s'more? Some more of what?