We’ve had a Sleep Number bed in our home for many years…it’s a California King, which is as big as they get. We need it, because Booger and Baby sleep with us, and they like to spread out and move about during the night. Nothing but the best for those two spoiled brats.
We also have Queen-sized Sleep Number bed in our RV. Actually, I sleep better in that one, for some reason.
The one in the rig sits on a platform that you can lift up and store things underneath, which is nice in an RV…more storage room is better. We’ve always liked that set-up, and we wanted to replace the crappy metal bed frame at home with something like that…on a California King scale.
Our son Jonathan, who is taking over Charlie’s bookkeeping business, used to be a cabinet maker. He was very good at it; he made our hutch, Charlie’s office, remodeled our master bathroom, and did various other projects around our house. He’s now out of the business, and has been doing bookkeeping for around eight years now.
Jonathan has a good friend, Tony, who has his own successful cabinetmaking business (Wicked Woodwork) in Temecula. They came up with a design for a new lift-top platform for our California King here in the house. Jonathan did the design concept, did the measurements, and then Tony fine-tuned the design and built the monster…for $3K.
Yesterday, Tony and his assistant Thor came over to the house to install the new piece of furniture. I was doing something else in the house when I heard Tony yell something very bad, and after a few minutes he said, “Craig, we have a problem. In fact, it is a catastrophic problem!”
I hate it when that happens. Anyway, the three of us stood there looking at the partially-assembled platform, trying to figure out what to do. Tony was beside himself; if he had a gun, he would have used it.
What had happened was that Jonathan had given Tony the right dimensions, but in the wrong order. As I understand it now, for a piece of furniture, the dimensions are width x length x height. Jonathan had reversed the width and length. So, the $3K one-of-a-kind platform wouldn’t accept the Sleep Number mattresses in the way that they were designed, and, also, there was no way to change the position of the platform (versus the headboard), because the platform was unfinished on that side. A colossal f’up. Tony was distraught, and Jonathan (via a phone call) was mortified. Thor and I just looked at the thing and tried to figure out some way to salvage the thing.
What we all decided to do, in the end, was to install the platform as built, but position the Sleep Number mattresses sideways, instead of lengthwise. As I told the guys, Charlie and I use the same Sleep Number pressure setting, so it shouldn’t really matter, because the whole sleeping surface will be uniform.
Tony and Thor were relieved, as was Jonathan, and Charlie and I now have the only installed California King with under-bed storage that is wider than it is long. It’s 80 inches wide, I believe, but I’ll have to check with Jonathan…
It’s actually pretty nice, because there is much more lateral room for the four of us to spread out in. And, it makes the bedroom look larger, which will help when we put it on the market in a few days.
Who knew?!