Slow and Steady Wins the Race

As I walked past my daughters' room and looked in I realized three things. #1 Their room really is pretty small. #2 Breanne is really growing up. #3 That bunk bed seems to sway every time Breanne rolls over.
The bunk bed to which I am referring was acquired just about 3 years ago, shortly after moving into our current home. I was out on a walk with the kids and saw an old wooden bunk bed for $5. What a deal! I ran home with the kids, grabbed the van and $5, and went and bought the bunk bed. It had stickers on the headboards, and initials carved into the wood. The lacquered finish was worn and completely wood bare in areas. I knew that with a little TLC it could be gorgeous! So I bought a quart of high gloss white paint and some heavy duty sandpaper and set to work. I lived in the garage for about two days, sanding, dusting and painting. When I was finished it was beautiful! It was so cute that you barely noticed the spot where the previous owner had taken a big bite out of the headboard.(?) We took the old loft bed from the girls' room, added a lower level bunk, and moved it into the boys' room. Then we set the new bed up in the girls' room. It was so cute.
Fast forward to 3 years of wear-and-tear, and a growing pre-teen and this really good deal was just no longer safe. I evaluated our options and knew that IKEA had a couple of really nice loft beds. If we got two loft beds, one for Bre and one for the little girls, then with the beds so high, we could make their room seem a lot bigger. So with our tax return we went to IKEA and headed over to the bed department. Now, the loft beds were high. That's the whole point of a loft bed. The bed is up high so you can have living space beneath it. What a great idea! IKEA knew that the beds were high and so they had marked on the wall a mock 8' ceiling. Just a line of blue tape on the wall that showed where an average home's 8 ft. ceiling would compare with the height of the bed. We looked and saw the line and we just knew that Bre would have plenty of room to sleep comfortably on her new bed. So we bought two. We brought them home and set to work putting them together. We just put the one together first to see what all of the girls thought about these new beds before we exerted any unnecessary effort into putting the other bed together. Kyleen was not having it! It was too high! That was when I noticed how high it really was. I swear that blue tape at IKEA was a lot higher than the bed at the store, but here in the house it wasn't that much room. It didn't help that the mattress at IKEA was only 4" thick and our mattresses were twice that. Add on blankets and a pillow and I'm starting to have second thoughts about Bre's comfortable night of sleep.
We decided to give it a try for the night and see how she felt about it in the morning. Watching her make the bed was hilarious! Have you ever tried to put a fitted sheet on the top bunk of a bunk bed? It's not easy. Try that with about 12" of ceiling clearance. Classic!
At bed time Breanne slithered into bed and, with just enough room to roll over without scraping the ceiling, found a comfortable position and went to sleep. I went in to check on her on my way to bed. The sound of the door opening woke her up just enough for her to lift her head to see who was coming. WHACK! There's that blue tape lined 8' ceiling! I kissed her good night, told her I was sorry that she bonked her head and then closed her door behind me before I busted out laughing.
The next morning I asked how Bre had slept to which she replied, "Um...it was OK. I think I kept hitting my head though." This time I busted out laughing right in front of her. It was just too funny. We decided that we would take the beds, both of them, back and just get a nice, new, sturdy bunk bed, and that's exactly what we did. After we had taken down the bed we noticed that there was an awful lot of ceiling popcorn on the floor!
Looking back three things stand out in my mind.
#1 Looks can be deceiving. That blue tape showed the exact measurement of an 8' ceiling, but because the ceiling above the tape was actually open, it was really hard to see that there really wouldn't be enough clearance for Breanne. #2 Breanne, although a light sleeper when it comes to sound is a very deep sleeper when it comes to pain. and #3 When it comes to beds....Low and Sturdy Saves the Face! (From being bonked on a pokey popcorn ceiling)