I went to Ikea last night to see about getting a new bed frame. My last bed frame, also from Ikea, was completely destroyed. For once it wasn't shoddy Swedish particle board that caused the breakage, it was my femur. Coming back from the bathroom late one evening in the dark I thought I had made it all the way to my bed. I put my hand down to leverage myself onto the mattress only to find that I was about four inches short. I fell forward and slammed my leg into the sideboard shattering it at the headboard and almost shattering my leg. With the sideboard damaged beyond repair and unable to support my weight the center support had to take it all which went far beyond its capabilities and it bent. With the support bent all the slats keeping the mattress up fell off resulting in the mattress falling on one side. I sort of repaired it by replacing the slats with cinder blocks and boards.
I actually wasn't too keen on getting another Ikea bed even though it wasn't entirely the fault of the last one that it broke. I found out recently that the founder of Ikea was one of the founders of the Nazi party in Sweden. Technically he doesn't own it anymore but there is some people who think he may still benefit from it so...
Unfortunately Ikea has the dual benefit of being cheap and not constructed. Both are very advantageous to me, the bed I bought is sitting in the garage in two compact boxes perfect for not costing me more to ship across the country.
The boxes themselves led to an interesting moment. When I went to go pick the boxes off of the shelves I noticed that the hole in the cardboard to show you the color in box 1 was different then the one on box 2. The box 1 color was the one I was interested in so I went all over the warehouse trying to find one that matched. The guy I talked to thought maybe the different color was the unexposed wood and that the other side might be correct, but he wasn't confident, so I went back into the showroom to give it a look. When I got back to the bed I saw that the side panels were definitely the same color as the head and baseboard so I crawled underneath to take a look. The color of the unexposed parts was unstained so I knew something was up.
I went back to the warehouse and discussed it with Greg who mentioned that I might be able to get a discount if the colors didn't match. I'm not fashionable enough to really care about furniture color and a discount sounded cool so I went to find another worker who was also really concerned about the color difference. He went and got a manager who came over and reiterated that it was the unexposed color. I told him I had checked and it definitely was not so he opened the box and took a panel out. It was the correct color. Turns out the hole cut in the cardboard didn't show the product at all but was just a piece of paper which was the wrong color so I bought the bed without reservation.
I also considered buying a desk. I will need a desk but I'm trying to keep my shipment small so here's hoping I find one in Machias somewhere. My landlady/grocer and her coworker told me that furniture is pretty easy to find. There are a couple of thrift stores and I live above an 'antique' store that also seems to be something of a thrift store. I did, however, pick up a nightstand after Greg suggested it and I agreed it would be worthwhile so now I got that going on the truck too.
So that makes me almost entirely ready for the move. I have to get some all weather tires and that's really it. I loaded up my car with most of the boxes I'm taking with me, only leaving out food and my toiletries, as well as all the dog's goods. So it's finally getting real people.
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