all in a day's work

Literally.

How lucky are our girls?! My sister Kayleigh asked if they make this in her size. It's so fun!

We'd been letting Ellie sleep in Callie's bed with her on the weekends for the past couple months & the bed sharing wasn't going well. Which is too bad for me since when we bought Callie's mattress & bedding Jeremiah thought we should go with a twin so we could eventually do bunks or 2 twins. I didn't ever want bunk beds since they're so hard to make & plus I thought it would be nice to have a full bed for our occassional guests (which I was also wrong about - a queen would have been better for that). And my argument was that I shared a bed with my sister growing up so our girls could do it too. Yeah, well what I didn't take into account was that my sister & I were a lot older than our girls when we started sharing a bed. Big difference. So after having problems with the girls sharing a bed we decided it wasn't going to work. Jeremiah has said "I told you so" several times! Enjoy Jeremiah - you don't get to say it very often! haha!

On Friday morning I was checking out bunk beds online even though I thought we'd wait another month to buy & officially move Ellie in with Callie, but after a lot of searching both new & Craigslist I came across the doll house bed by Tradewins. It was $400 from someone in Bullhead (45 mins away) who claims they paid $2500 in 2005. I checked it out a lot online & was able to find it new for $1100, but honestly if I'm going to spend that much on a bunk bed (which I realize is what you can expect to pay for a new set) I was going to go with a well made traditional set. I forwarded the info to Jeremiah who at first asked if I didn't think that seemed like a lot of money for bunk beds (he lives under a rock). I told him about all the bunk beds I'd found on Craigslist - metal or corral fence looking wood ones - & assured him this was a great find. He agreed to it & he was able to pick up the bed that evening.

So the all day part is because the guy we bought it from is a complete jack-a & totally screwed up & ruined the bed in so many ways! He drilled all kinds of holes all over in it that were completely not necessary. Not only were they not necessary, but he apparently didn't know how to use a tape measure either because in some places his first hole wasn't in the right place so he drilled a 2nd one close by. He also didn't know how to use a drill bit because he didn't pre-drill any holes before screwing stuff in. If you've ever worked with wood you'll know that that's a big deal because otherwise your wood splits from the screws. So yeah, total jack-a. Jeremiah said on Saturday night that if he'd known before we bought it how badly the guy had screwed it up he wouldn't have bought it. During the construction process he had to make 3 trips to town for supplies (because of course it was missing half the hardware). We also had to get creative for a lot of fixes. And I have to make a trip to Frazee (Paint store. That's not open on Saturdays.) with a part of the bed to get it color matched so that we can patch the billion screw holes from the idiot & do touch-up paint. I also have to call the manufacturer today to buy a new hardware set since none of the hardware stores here had a couple of the pieces we needed. (Don't worry, it's safe for the girls to sleep & play on for now.) So even though it's put together it still needs a bit of work. I think if we'd bought it new we could have had that baby up in an hour. For reals!

But the girls LOOOOOVE it! It's awesome! I just wish we'd been able to get it for $200 instead - it would have been more worth it. But I am stoked cause I found the matching bedding I need for the twin mattress that I have to buy on eBay. Not only is the auction for the quilt & sham, but also the exact sheeting that I have had a hard time finding. Yay!