A few weeks back, I mentioned that we inherited a king sized mattress from my brother and sister-in-law. We passed our queen sized mattress to my other brother, who just moved into a condo. We didn’t have a frame for it, but we figured we could always pick up a cheap one.

After a few weeks of sleeping on the bed, I was hit with back pain. There was one weekend where I couldn’t step up and down the single step in our family room without doing this embarassing yelp of pain. The mattress was much too soft for us and Mike’s back wasn’t far behind mine. We knew there was nothing we could do to really help it, since we found out that my brother had the same problem, so we didn’t want to invest money in any sort of topper. We slept on the couch most nights until we finally decided to bite the bullet and head to Sears for their Labor Day mattress sale.

We bought our queen mattress there 5 years ago and knew the prices were ridiculously low at this time of year. The last time we went mattress shopping we shopped around for days, hit every possible store, layed on bed after bed and made an educated decision. This time we went to Sears with Easton, left his pacifier in the car on accident, had an overtired baby with no paci and picked out a mattress in less than 10 minutes.

We went with a Sealy Posturepedic and chose it like Goldilocks. Sterns and Foster? Too expensive. Basic Sealy? A little flimsy feeling. Then there were two priced in the middle $100 apart. I compared the features while running back and forth across the department and decided to go with the one with the stay cool fabric memory foam Eurotop. I think Sears called it the Gibson. Then I tried to make Easton forget about his missing paci while Mike played the same game and landed on the same mattress. We had the option of getting it plush or firm and after the two of us were walking around hunched over for two weeks, we went with firm.

This was also a great opportunity for us to add on that standard bed frame so that our mattress was no longer on the floor. We saved some additional money by keeping my brother’s box spring. All in all, it was way cheaper than I ever thought we’d be able to get a middle ranged, king mattress for. I think in the end we paid around $1000. I was too busy keeping my finger in Easton’s mouth while he slept to watch the register…

Our mattress was delivered on Monday and since we now have a frame, I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to show you the pathetic state of our bedroom.

We moved in 2.5 years ago. Still no paint. Still no window treatments. This room kills me. At first I was like WTF, the pillowcases don’t match for the picture? Then I realized that it just adds to the trailer park chic 🙂

Part of the reason why we haven’t done anything in here is that the room is overwhelmingly huge. For example, we just got a king bed. In this picture, you will see that our queen frame (and bedding) is still living in the room, fully assembled….

And there’s a full sitting room behind it that can accommodate another king bed. And we can probably fit a full by the door. Maybe we should just rent this space out to some nice college kids?

Since we added a wall with french doors to close off the sitting room (it was one giant room before), we still have yet to prime it. We also have yet to caulk or paint the new trim in the room (new meaning 2 years ago). Since we’ve put this off for so long, we think it’s best to hire someone to tackle it. Let’s face it, we’re not going to do it. We always put the rest of the house first and this job is HUGE. I’m fully confident we could do it in a weekend, but it has taken me 2.5 years to realize that I’m fully confident that I don’t want to. I would like a nice hotel like feel in here, but I also savor every bit of my weekends now. If we opt to paint it ourselves, we’re just going to put it off again. I think we finally need somewhere cozy to sleep.

Operation bedroom starts now. I’m thinking medium gray walls, an upholstered headboard, maybe I’ll make another bedskirt and some curtains. I’m feeling inspired by this extra set of sheets we picked up at Target…

Maybe I should finally make a mood board?

ps- Sorry my posting has been inconsistent, I’ve been battling my second and third nursing illnesses… in a single week. Just when I feel like I’m making progress in the juggling game, I am put back in my place.

This weekend we inherited my brother’s old king mattress. We’ve wanted a king sized bed since we moved in, so much so that when we got married, we registered for a king sized bedding set. That was over 3 years ago and it’s been sitting in it’s packaging, in our linen closet. When Easton arrived, our want for a king sized bed turned into a need (okay, in a first world problems sort of way)…

Every morning, my one ass cheek has been clinging for life off the side of the bed. So when I heard that my brother was looking to get rid of a king and that my other brother, who just bought a condo, wanted our queen, it was perfect. Plus, my brother’s friend was willing to pick up the king, bring it to our house and take away the queen. Talk about an ideal scenario 🙂

This all happened so quickly that we are bed frameless. I’m currently typing this from a mattress and boxspring sitting on my bedroom floor. We held off on a king because a) we didn’t want to spend money on a mattress and b) we hoped to build a bed because c) we didn’t want to spend money on a bed. We wanted to build the farmhouse bed from Pottery Barn…

(via Pottery Barn)

But once we had a mattress (on the floor), I thought maybe we could find an expensive bed frame at Ikea. So we packed up the kid and headed out!

The verdict was… he loved Ikea.

I think this is only the second or third picture that I have of us together. I really need to work on that.

We were pretty disappointed in the bed selection. I couldn’t snap any pictures because, as you see above, someone decided he didn’t want to sit in his car seat anymore so we ended up carrying him around. The only thing we liked was this Bekkestua headboard.

(via Ikea)

It seemed overpriced though, the Ikea website lists $300 for a king headboard alone, though I swear it was $400 something in store. Combined with the frame it it ran over $600! Still not much compared to other stores, but still more than we wanted to spend. Needless to say, we left Ikea empty handed for perhaps the first time ever.

We think we’re going to make Easton like the Travelocity gnome and just take pictures of him in front of random scenes.

Since we had to travel to Philly, by the time we were leaving it was time for the bub’s next meal. We may have spent just as much time in the parking lot as we did in the store.

Yes, his bottle matches his outfit 🙂

After striking out in the bed search, here is what I’m thinking. The bedding we have is aqua/white…

But we also have an orange/white duvet cover, so I want to keep things as neutral as possible. I want to be able to change bedding easily if need be (and because I have an accent pillow addiction).

After seeing the upholstered headbard at Ikea, I think maybe I’ll make my own for now. In my dreams I would still like a canopy bed someday, but I know our to-do list is endless and it’s just not a priority now. After browsing Pinterest, I found this headboard/wall color that I’m liking…

(from Bedding Experts via Pinterest)

I’d probably do the headboard a lighter gray like the Ikea one and keep the walls a darker gray/brown/greige color. I’ve always loved patterned headboards, but I think keeping things neutral is the smartest idea for us. I’m also not sure about the tufting and I prefer a straight, more modern headboard. So yeah, I pretty much just like the lighter headboard on a darker wall. As for the frame, we’ll probably just expand the current full sized metal frame in our guest room and rock a bed skirt.

For now, I shall sleep on the floor… sprawled out 🙂