Saturday, April 5, 2014

New Bed

Now that the Master Bedroom is finally painted, it's time to start moving in!

In our previous apartments we have had problems with the pets getting underneath the bed. This can create problems anywhere from getting the pet out of the bedroom at night (ever tried dragging a stubborn tortoise out from underneath the middle of the bed? I have.), to finding various "presents" under the bed - either when we can't find something anywhere else (usually a tupperware lid) or when we start to notice a bad smell.

We decided to take a leaf from the safety manual and engineer a solution where the problem can never arise. We decided to buy a bed frame that fit our existing mattress and had built-in storage underneath, preventing pets from getting under the bed altogether. We decided on the IKEA Brimnes.

We picked up the flat-pack boxes from IKEA on Thursday evening, but were too tired to assemble it that night.

On Friday, I finally remembered to bring some light bulbs that had to be returned to IKEA with me in the morning, to be dropped off at IKEA on the way home from work. While I was there, I stopped by the "As-Is" section, which has a constantly changing supply of display models, open-box items and damaged merchandise. Much to my surprise, the exact model, size and color bed that we had purchased the day before for $190 was in the "As-Is" section for a mere $40! I bought it.

It had one chip in it.



We added some white putty to even out the chip, but it wasn't necessary: the chipped board went in the center of the bed, completely invisible from the outside:


It took a while to put together.


And there were a lot of little pieces that all had to be used in the correct places:


There was one piece of hardware that was pretty interesting. I'm calling it a radial screw, for lack of a better term:


It was a lot of work, but the results were worth it:



We still have to return the first bed frame we bought, but to save $150, it's well worth the hassle.

***Update April 9, 2014***

To clarify the order of events:
  • We bought a bed frame for full price.
  • The next day I found the same type of bed frame, damaged, for $40. I bought it, so we had two bed frames, both still in their boxes.
  • We assembled the damaged bed frame.
  • We returned the first bed frame (which we had purchased for full price, and had never been assembled) and got a refund!

No comments:

Post a Comment