It may be a leftover fear
from when we were children --
when we believed there might be monsters under the bed
or in the closet at night, waiting to pounce! -- but even as
grownups, we fear things that go BUMP in the night.
And something certainly went BUMP one night in our guest room.
This story was first posted in September 2010.
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My brother Kirby and his wife Doris now live in Virginia, so they sometimes stay
overnight with us when they come up to Yankee country.
In September 2010, after a family gathering at That Old House,
they settled in for a good night's sleep.
They'd stayed before in the Pink Room, without incident.
Except for the first time,
when Doris declined the use of a footstool for getting into the high bed,
and Kirby had to haul her in like a sack of potatoes. But I digress . . . .
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| Please excuse Naked Bed. |
This big four-poster is a good place for a nice long snooze.
Most nights.
Not on the night of September 19th, 2010.
On that night, in the wee small hours,
the bed frame parted ways with one of its side rails,
and - boom! - down crashed the mattress and box spring . . .
and Kirby and Doris.
Howard and I were awakened by a gentle knocking on our door.
(Yes, the deafening crash itself didn't wake us!)
Doris stood outside our door, in the hall. "Umm. . . the bed fell down," she calmly announced.
The bed fell down? The bed fell down?
Thank goodness we have another guest room.
My brother and his wife grabbed their pillows, and toddled down the hallway
in their jammies like two Wee Willie Winkies, settling into another vintage bed.
This one, below, much older than the one that fell down.
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| Another naked bed, sorry! Why do I always take pictures when there are no sheets on them? | |
I remembered to warn them that the old bed in the yellow room creaks. A lot.
But it won't fall down.
And, it didn't.
What went wrong with the other bed?
Well, for some reason the manufacturer thought that little metal pins would hold
the side rails securely in the metal hangers that hook into the four posts.
And they did.
Until they didn't.
The little pins apparently had been wiggling their way to freedom for 2-plus years,
and on that Saturday night, they made a break for it.
On Sunday, Howard went to the hardware store,
bought bolts, and now the corners of the bed sport these:
It's not a pretty fix, but this bed is not going walkies in the middle of the night ever again.
Sometimes when you are a fan of vintage furniture, and of Craigslist bargains,
it takes a little tweaking to get it right!
Safe again for a nice long snooze.
Once I put the linens and blankets back on.
One more thing to share.
When I went into the Yellow Room to take a picture of that bed, I couldn't resist taking
a shot out one of its windows, behind our house to the stairs, driveway, and grape arbor below:
Okay, so not all that spectacular, but then I cropped the picture to show you this:
That's our grape vine out there but that's not the fun part.
The fun part is the glass in this pane.
Do you see how it sags? It's old glass,
and old glass -- which of course is made of sand -- can bubble and sag over the years.
There are lots of years on the windows in That Old House, and this pane
is one of my favorites here. It's hard to photograph such wavy glass;
I hope you can see the swoops and wiggles. I just love them.
I wouldn't want a windshield made of that glass for my car but in my house. . . it's lovely.
And that's it! My re-run of an old post.
I hope to pick up some vintage furniture for my booth today, and get some things put into place
while I have Howard to help out. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
-- Cass
