Birchtree Farm

Doesn't it seem that projects are always getting interrupted by something? For instance, one project we have is to be able to move into the "master" bedroom in the main house. When we first moved in, we found that it was physically impossible to get a full size boxspring up the stairs to the bedroom. The stairs are located in the dining room, and they end about two feet from the wall. The ceilings of this house are also barely 7 feet high, and the opening between the top of the bannister and the ceiling and the short spacing from the end of the bannister (which has a nice big finial on the newel post) to the wall combine to make it impossible to get a stiff boxspring up the stairs. The mattress went up because it's flexible. They must have only put twin beds up there in the past.

Anyway, for a few days we slept on the mattress which was placed directly on the floor, but that didn't last long. We moved over into the guest room in the apartment. But, all our clothes are in the closets in the master bedroom, so it's a lot of back and forth and up and down to get dressed in the morning.

We do have a metal bed frame but it's pretty useless without a boxspring for support. However, last Saturday we went to the Remick Museum's barn sale. The Remick is a historical museum and working farm right in Tamworth village. At the sale they had a lot of different items, from computers and printers to old glass bottles and wooden tools, and everything in between, AND, they had a couple of old wooden bed frames. One caught our eye and we snapped it up for $50. It was marked "chestnut?" and has a solid headboard and footboard. We like it a lot, whether it's chestnut or not, and here it is:

Notice however that the bed slats are not installed. This is because when I went to lay them across the frame, they didn't fit. They're too short. Somehow, somewhere, the bed slats that went with this bed got misplaced. Either we got the bed slats for the other bed frame that was at the sale, or something else happened. I've emailed the folks at the Remick and they emailed back to let me know that the people in charge of the barn sale are on vacation but she'll let them know and maybe they'll be able to find the original slats.

So now we are on hold again until we can find out if we'll be able to get the right slats. Otherwise I guess we will have to purchase some boards and make our own. Then we'll construct a "boxspring" out of 1 x 8 boards and plywood to fit inside the frame. It will sort of end up being like a platform bed, but surrounded by the old wooden frame.