I am A LINKING PARTICIPANT!!

 #oneroomchallenge

THE ONE ROOM CHALLENGE was conceived and is coordinated by Linda at CALLING IT HOME blog and  is a semi-annual event where 20 bloggers, made up of Professional Designers, Diy’ers, and Interior Design Bloggers, transform a room from start to finish.  For the next six Wednesday’s, THEY will be giving you updates on THEIR room progress.

IN THE MEANTIME, anyone that wants to (like ME) can  LINK UP and Participate and is INVITED to POST THEIR progress on THURSDAYS!!! And I am JUMPING ON BOARD!!!

LAST WEEK WAS WEEK 1  –I introduced you to my daughter Phoebe’s current bedroom and lay out our plans to make it over for her upcoming 17th birthday.

WEEK 2: Show us your progress. What have you accomplished?

PHOEBE’S BEDROOM MAKEOVER

THE SPINDLE BED

I have looked for THE PERFECT SPINDLE/SPOOL bed for years! A finally I found it! I had intended to wait until the room came together to put it in her room, but my darling daughter and her younger brother were making sledding jumps in the back yard during our last snow storm, using PAM (yes the cooking spray) to accelerate THE icy RUNS and ended up with a bad concussion which kept her out of school for two weeks

…sooooo…we got her a new mattress and set up her new bed….

What you don’t see in this photograph is the DRAMA behind the mattress INSTALLATION. I shall explain…LET US START WITH a little lesson in mattress sizes:

WHAT IS A 3/4 BED?

Many antique beds are called  “3/4 Beds”. They measure about (48″ wide × 73.0–75″ long) and are WIDER than a TWIN (39″ wide x 75″ long) but  a few inches narrower than a FULL -( 54″ wide x 75″ long). The bed Internal FRAME of Phoebe’s Spindle bed (which is about 150 years old)  measures 47″ wide and 75″ long  BUT…when you ADD then 3″ on each side for the side rails and the headboard it is 53″ so I determined that we had LUCKED OUT! WHILE A 3/4 mattresses can be found pretty readily online ,they are a tad more expensive. We could fit a full-sized one into the frame.

I decided that since the bed would already be tall enough,and the mattress extra PLUSH,  to forgo a box spring and just had plywood cut to lay on TOP of the side rails.

I am 5’6″ and the mattress came to my boobs! And Phoebe, ALL 5′ 1″ of her was like the “Princess and the Pea”!

There was enough room under her bed to put another bed! I had 3 options as I saw it:

1. Get her stairs to climb into her bed and call it a day.

2. Have a carpenter lower the bed rails by 5″ or

3. Remove 5″ from the bottom of the bed legs.

I went with #3. It was not an easy decision to cut into this piece of Furniture Art History , but it made the most sense, the legs were already so tall that the bed looked a bit awkward and was hard to climb into for my petite one..

What I did not know then, and what still makes me a little sick to my stomach , is that

I HAD PUT THE RAILS IN UPSIDE DOWN!!!.

THE SIDE rails were wood and on one side they curved near the ends. I installed them with the CURVE Facing DOWN…and put plywood on TOP of the rails…and the mattress on top of that…. Had I flipped the rails, the mattress would have been AUTOMATICALLY been lowered by 5″. NOW, it would have HAD to be a 3/4 mattress then because it would need to go WITHIN the BED FRAME, NOT resting ON TOP giving it 6 more inches – 3 on each side ….of extra room. But still, when I had those sawed off legs in my hand and my husband put the rails in the opposite way I had them…and I realized that ALL ALONG I had based  every decision with the rails in upside down..my heart sank and I almost cried…I quickly calculated “Could I hit rewind on my life by 5 minutes and reattached the legs?”… but it was too late. It was done. And in the end, she was able to have her PLUSH FULL sized mattress, the bed is a better height and our efforts were not in vain!!

NEXT WEEK – WE TACKLE WALLPAPERING!!!

Here is a LIST of the TALENTED ORC PARTICIPANTS:

I have had so much fun checking out the 20 participants AND THE OTHER LINKING PARTICIPANTS!!…There are such diverse styles and a such WIDE range of spaces being transformed..from total Kitchen gut jobs to reimagined master bedrooms and even another teen girls room!

BELOW ARE THEIR LINKS  if you have some time to be inspired!!!

Jana Bek | Autumn Clemons | Coco+Kelley | The English Room | Vanessa Francis | Greige Design | Hi Sugarplum | I Heart Organizing | Jenna Sue Design | Stephanie Krauss | The Pursuit of Style | Julia Ryan | Savvy Home | Simple Details | Simply Grove | 6th Street Design School | Jill Sorensen | Swoonworthy | Waiting on Martha | Kimberly Schlegel Whitman

I HOPE you will follow along…and  Be sure to subscribe to MY OLD COUNTRY HOUSE TO keep up with other Giveaways ( a BIG one is coming in April!)  and all the shenanigans we got going on!   Let’s get friendly on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

                                                           

 

HAVE A GREAT DAY AND THANK YOU FOR FOLLOWING ALONG!