Friday, December 07, 2012

#133. or, There's a leak in my bed

  Currently, we are in the midst of renovating our bedroom. Nothing quite as extensive as blowing a wall out and actually changing the physical configuration of the room. But still, the floor is down to the plywood and we're replacing all of the trims and the window. So, in terms of sleeping facilities, my wife and I are somewhat........transient.

  Before we could start this renovation, we had to go through some of our stuff and, well.....weed things out. Now, we've been together for over 20 wonderful years. And fortunately, when we moved in together, the woman I love, came with household things. Like everything necessary to function from day to day. The only thing of value that I brought along was my official framed, 1989, Batman movie poster. Which she did grudgingly let me hang on our living room wall for a little while, or at least until she found something less man-cave-ish to replace it with. Now, my poster lives in the basement with our stinky children.

  Anyways, we had to cull some of our belongings. It's gotten a little easier to do that as I get older, but I still catch her rolling her eyes when I get, perhaps overly defensive, at her suggestion of throwing out my 30 year old, TV Guide collection and my zip-lock bag, full of broken wrist watch pieces. Some things are just sacred to a man. Plus, I may need that stuff some day?

  Now, because I'm always thinking about my wife, (besides the every 7 seconds thing) I wanted her to have the semblance of an actual bedroom while ours was in transition. So, I took it upon myself to transform our basement work room into the new, temporary, master bedroom. I use the term workroom, rather loosely, because while that's what we intended it to be, it's probably better described as the hell hole where we throw everything that we think we should keep, yet never use. It's the room that we keep the door closed on.

  So, I cleaned the workroom/hell hole out, and my son hauled away a whole trailer load of junk. It took me 3 days but I turned that space into a cozy area for us. I brought down a dresser for her, hung temporary closet rods, and set up our BYOB. (bring your own bed) This might come as a shock you, but sleeping on a bed, that folds up into a space slightly larger that a backpack, is not quite as luxurious as it sounds. It has a collapsible framework and an air mattress that slips into an attached sleeve. Really, it's not so bad, except I think it must have a slow leak. Over the few days we've been using it, I noticed that while we lay in it together, everything is fine. But when one person would get out, all of the air would fill the void left by that person, and whoever was left in bed, would drop down onto the framework. And because I suffer from the inability to jump out of bed, bright eye'd and bushy tailed, I would try to find the most comfortable position left available, by contorting my body to avoid all the high spots on the framework. Also, if whoever had gotten up, say to use the can or something, returned and flopped into bed, the person who had stayed, would be shot off the mattress, a few inches into the air. Which was fun, until my wife got mad at me for repeatedly getting in and out of bed to bounce her into the air and made me stop.

  One other thing that I overlooked, was making our bedroom right next to the furnace room. Actually, I had thought that one layer of drywall would sufficiently muffle the sounds of 2 furnaces rumbling away. I had failed to consider that while the layer of drywall was there, (which has no sound muffling qualities whatsoever, just in case your wondering)   all of the duct work runs directly into the workroom/hell hole/cozy bedroom. You would be correct if you were to assume that two tin boxes running the length of a room amplify sound, like to 100 times louder than if we had actually slept right on top of the furnaces. It's like trying to sleep in the engine test facility of a DC10 hanger.

  But we're getting used to it. I have to re-inflate the bed every other day to keep it firm, but that's not such a big deal. And while it's still noisy as hell, we seem to be getting used to the constant rumble of the furnaces. I've also noticed that there's something oddly comforting about laying in bed and actually being able to reach out in the dark and touch some of my power tools.

   ......................although I'm not sure that my wife appreciates that perk quite as much as I do?



This week, I'll be joining up with the other Dudes at Dude Write, with this post. I encourage you to pop over and read what the guys bring to the table. You can get there by clicking on THIS LINK



24 comments:

  1. Yep, that's an air mattress all right. I think at that point I would have slept on the sofa.

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    1. Hi Holly,
      I've slept on our sofa before. The air mattress is actually better. :)

      Delete
  2. It's important to have power tools within reach when in bed, no doubt about it!

    Also, thanks for reminding me of this:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyLZ4yd1_8w

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    1. As much as that's what I had in my mind when I was jumping on the bed, I'd have to say, I fell far short of that.

      Delete
  3. If I were your wife, I'd call dibs on the couch in the living room, STAT!

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    1. Hi Debra,
      I'm just so darned irresistible that she happily puts up with the leaky air mattress. ;)

      Delete
  4. I suppose things could be worse...like not being within reach of your power tools! At least you still get to sleep next to each other, because if it were me or my wife one of us would be on the couch!

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    1. I'm considering trying to talk my wife into including some power tool shelving in our bedroom renovation. However, I'm not sure what kind of favours I'd have to give up to to get them.

      Delete
  5. awww Ken that is really a nice thing you did for you both I mean besides the noise etc...most times peoples would just be making due yes taking dibs on the couch etc...I hate the air mattress for years fought the hubs on buying one for the tent camping BUT when camping it is so damn cold there is not as much getting in and out of it. Good job being a good husband!

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    1. Thanks Penelope Kay,

      Well, we actually gain by doing this because that room did really need to be cleaned out.

      If you're a tent camper, you have my admiration. I'm far to soft for that. Plus my wife really likes having a flush toilet handy enough that she doesn't have to go outside during the night. :)

      Delete
  6. This cracked me up! I'm just picturing you gleefully bouncing your wife around on the bed :) And the power tool line made me laugh so loud, I scared my cat.

    All I can say is your wife is a trooper! I would not want to sleep in the basement grunge room. I suppose I've slept in worse places, but that was usually just for a night or two.

    And I must know something...why in the world do you need to keep a 30 year tv guide collection? All the shows are over! I'm with your wife on that one. But I'm glad you got to keep your Batman poster :)

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    1. Hi Kianwi,

      OH dear, I hope your cat didn't get too scared?

      I think that you underestimate my ability to clean up a room? I have a fine set of domestic skills. But yes, she is a trooper anyways, for putting up with me. ;)

      Doesn't everybody have a 30 year old TV Guide collection? How are you supposed to teach the children about MacGyver and the Six Million Dollar Man? Besides the internet, I mean. I hadn't actually counted on the internet happening.

      Delete
  7. Air mattresses do that. They're perfect until that jerk you're sleeping with gets up.

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    1. Hi Stephen,

      I think that I'm going to have a new appreciation for any guests that sleep over and have to use that damned thing.

      Delete
  8. Ahahaha. Your post made me smile. The power tool line! Best. sentence. Ever. I hope your renovations go well and your wife can get back to being the item you touch in the dark. ;)

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    1. Hi Carrie, nice to see you back around.

      As nice as it is to be able to touch my power tools, it doesn't even come close, compared to being able to touch my wife in the dark. (that's what I'm doing with my other hand.) ;)

      Delete
  9. I don't think I could get used to the noise of the furnace/duct work. We don't have furnaces here so I just picture a big black thing breathing fire with sharp teeth in the basement when you say furnace.

    Also, we don't have basements.

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    1. Hi Tracie,

      you get used to the rumble of the furnace, it comes on intermittently for 7 months of the year.

      These furnaces are not all that intimidating. The big, black, fire-breathing furnace with sharp teeth was in the basement of my childhood.

      Delete
  10. You mean your wife doesn't have her own set of "power" tools handy? You're a good man Dan. It's the thought that counts. For Alisha and I, we simply cannot sleep without some white-noise in the room, which is usually provided by a great number of fans.

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    1. Hey Michael,

      To be fair, she actually does have a few things. It's her scroll saw that have to walk past every time we go through the door.

      This goes a bit beyond white-noise. However, If we ever do get used to this enough to sleep soundly, I think we'll be able to sleep through anything!

      Delete
  11. Power tools better be a literal thing, ha!

    Air mattresses are only fun when full.

    WG

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    1. Um.....sure, we can go with that. Saws and things.

      Delete
  12. I hate sleeping on air mattresses when I stay at other people's houses. It always sounds like I am farting when getting in and out

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    1. On the flip side, it also gives you a free pass to get up in the morning and blame every odd sound over the night on the noisy mattress?

      Delete