Personal Statement

Personal Statement

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

This Old House: Tiger Oak Threw Up in Our Home

While we're on the subject of my crazy English oak obsession.


First piece I ever acquired.  Refinished by my mom.  Now resides in our bedroom.


Sideboard.  Not to be confused with a chiffonier.  I have one of those, too.  Spouse and I bought the sideboard together shortly after we got married.  It's Art Deco, from the 20s, so it looks perfect in our 20s house.


Chest in the living room that holds the kids' games and stuff.  The movers damaged one of the legs.  The Queen (that would be me) is not amused.  But it's fixable.


Craftsman dresser in our bedroom.  I let Spouse go crazy with the Craftsman in the master.  I really like this piece:  it's the perfect size and dimensions for the wall opposite our bed, and one of these days it will look great with a really big flat-screen TV over it.  One of these days.



Headboard and Harris-Lebus dresser from England that I use as an end table.  This picture makes me happy, as does the one above, because HOW DEAD-ON WERE WE IN SELECTING A FLOOR STAIN WHEN ALL OF OUR FURNITURE WAS IN STORAGE AND WE HAD TO OPERATE ENTIRELY FROM MEMORY?  (Pats self on back and air-pats Spouse's back from across room.)

Funny story about this headboard (although it wasn't funny at the time):  we opted against the matching footboard, because we have met our children.  It wasn't a question of IF they would  break the footboard by climbing on it, and/or concuss themselves on the posts - relevant questons were WHEN and HOW OFTEN.  So our bed is just a headboard and a bed frame, but the frame is up on risers.  When we moved back into the house, the furniture came on one truck, and everything else came on a second truck - two days later.  So here come the movers with the headboard, and the metal frame - but no risers.  BECAUSE THE RISERS WERE "SMALL WARES," AND WERE PACKED IN A BOX,  WHICH WOULD ARRIVE TWO DAYS LATER.  I watched the movers attempt to reconcile the headboard and bed frame, and I decided to throw them a bone:

Me:  Let me make this easy for you.  There are risers that make the bed frame tall enough to mount to the headboard.  And I'm guessing that those are not on this truck?

Movers (nodding):  We'll just leave the pieces here, and you can assemble it when the risers come?

Me:  Like HELL you will.  Here's what we're going to do:  you're going to take a lunch break, because you're due for one.  In the meantime, that woman [my mother-in-law] who just sprinted past you with car keys in her hand is going to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond and buy me some duplicate bed risers.  If you manage to beat her back here, you can start assembling my son's loft bed first.  Trust me, that sucker's going to take you awhile.

Fifteen minutes later, my mom-in-law calls to let me know that the bed risers came in two different heights.  I told her to err on the side of too tall.  I really thought that the ones we had before were tall, but these new ones are not so much bed risers as BED STILTS.  I practically need a ladder to climb up onto the mattress, which I love.  What I don't love:  watching our cats try to jump onto the bed, miscalculate and glance off of the side of the mattress.  Okay, maybe it makes me laugh a little.

How high is the bed?  High enough that we keep a pallet of wood under it.  Seriously:  we had two-plus boxes of leftover hardwood planks that we decided we should keep in case any individual floor boards need to be replaced.  We wanted to keep 'em somewhere climate-controlled.   Why not under the bed?  I mean, they FIT. 

Will get around to photographing the awesomely high bed, and its environs, as soon as I finish going through the last couple of boxes (personal papers, a few of which will end up in the Harris-Lebus chest and most of which will end up in the shredder).

[Editor's note:  The first time I published this post, I left the word "to" out of the phrase "tall enough to mount to the headboard," such that the entire sentence read, "There are risers that make the bed frame tall enough to MOUNT THE HEADBOARD."  When I saw this, it brought to mind images of a large dog, and a much smaller dog on a stool - you get the idea, right? - and elicited a chuckle out of the dirty part of my brain (which is a pretty significant part of my brain - probably detectable on a CAT scan, possibly detectable from space).  I thought about leaving the error in place.  But then Grammar Nazi Kathryn won over - so I fixed the typo, but am sharing the explanation here.  So you, too, will have a visual mental picture of a Great Dane and a chihuahua, or whatever mismatched canines you personally select.)

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