06 December 2011

Easy To Assemble. No Tools Required!

We've been sleeping on a Queen-size, soft-side, fully baffled waterbed for 22 years. With one exception we love the thing-
My wife sleeps as a "runner". At 5'10" she's mostly legs, and she lays claim to about 80% of the bed when she's sleeping. Put both of us in a Queen-size space, add two dogs (that want to lay right on top of me), and you've got a cramped situation.
I don't complain...
I only need about a foot WAY OVER HERE on my side of the bed. But if she happens to touch me or the dogs when she is "sprinting" , she's not a happy snoozer.

For several years now she's been begging for a King-size bed. A couple months ago QVC had a special on "Select Comfort" air beds. We chatted, then agreed a new bed would be a nice Christmas gift we could give one another. So we pulled the trigger.
And that meant doing a "musical chairs" routine with our bedrooms. The bed in our guest room was a full-size... much too small for our 6'3" offspring to sleep on, requiring us to inflate a portable air mattress for him during his visits. So the plan unfolded:
Sell the antique bed in the guest room.
Drain and move the waterbed to that bedroom.
Build the new "Sleep Number" bed in the Master BR.

Our UPS driver Tim delivered seven big boxes about a month ago.
Three weeks ago we finally sold the bed in the guest room.
Draining, disassembling, the re-assembling that bed downstairs took the better part of two days.
Then my work-shift week started. We inflated the portable air mattress normally used by our son and slept on the floor of our bedroom for a week.

Two days ago I started unpacking (BIG!) boxes. (And what a shame there isn't an easy, good use for all that wonderful cardboard.)
No tools required... EASY to assemble!
Yeah... right.

There was an assembly manual, AND an "easy to follow" DVD. Problem was, they didn't agree on how to build the bed. Tired and frustrated the first night, I finally quit when I couldn't make the foundation pieces fit the way the DVD said they should, figuring I might better understand with a rested mind.
Sure enough, the next day I did a little experimenting and sorted that problem out, only to be once again stymied by missing pieces to the puzzle. The DVD indicated four plastic "corner pieces" should be installed to hold foam inserts in place at the side, head, and foot of the bed.
Go outside and search through all the discarded cardboard...
Those pieces were nowhere to be found.
Find the "800" number for help...
Dial it...
"We're sorry, but there is no one here to answer your call. Please call back during normal business hours. Your call is important to us!"

ARRRRRGHHHHHH!

RTDM... read the damn manual...
There I find, those pieces ARE NOT necessary with our particular bed.

The rest of the assembly goes without a hitch.
We slept off the floor last night on a bed that looks the size of a tennis court.
My "runner" would have to sprint the 100-yard dash to touch me.
The dogs and I slept undisturbed on my 1 foot piece of territory at the edge.


It's a great bed.
I'm calling "Select Comfort" today with suggestions on how to improve the instructions so that when you buy yours you won't consider committing suicide as I did.

6 comments:

Scotty said...

Three mattresses later and 6 years in time.....I want my soft sided water bed back!

BTW a king bed saved our marriage!! I'm the one that is in a constant state of flux in the bed!

We've had a king bed for 30 of our 40 years of marriage!

I've looked at the air bed and had friends that tried them and didn't like them. The memory foam the same.....

The money we've spent on (the end all of all beds) mattresses keeps my on the one we have..damn they all seem SO expensive. Money I would have more joy by spending on a man toy of some kind!

Scotty said...

man toy as in, a down payment of the crate motor I want for the hot rod!!

jinksto said...

Congratulations... we desperately need a new bed but the one we've had for 10 years just seems to work so we never pull the trigger.

THINGS YOU'D NEVER GUESS ABOUT ME said...

After years on a "double" bed, we added the 6 inches for a "queen sized" bed and had room for the dog.

FINALLY, I have a bedroom that can handle a king sized mattress. Oh the JOY of not having the body heat from one person drift to the other!

And I can now sleep in my rightful position. picture the letter "K" and that's me.

Then "X" and throw in "L". Joe's still on his 10 inches of space.

Greybeard said...

I tried to leave a comment at your blog today Dana and couldn't. I'll try again later and let ya know.

Old NFO said...

LOL, yeah, probably translated from Chinese instructions and they missed a word or two (dozen)... I spend so many nights on the road, I found a hotel bed I liked and bought one for home :-)