Honeymoon Bed
Our brass bed came from an old Polish homestead in Northern Wisconsin. I bet it was a prized possession when it was new. The Cat’s Pajamas. It was black with corrosion back then, but I spent a week with brass cleaner, steel wool, elbow grease and constant cursing to make it shine again.
I’ve slept in that bed since 1971. For you mathematicians, that’s a long time, a world of snoring, a universe of dreams and plenty of whoopee. You can get attached to a bed after that long.
So it was a surprise when the mizzus wanted a new one. Mostly she wanted a queen size and since the brass bed is a double, well, maybe you can see my dilemma. I suppose I could buy a bedframe or salvage one from Habitat for Humanity’s store — and actually I looked — but what I saw wasn’t going to replace the hole in our bedroom when that brass bed got hauled down to the shack. A bed, it seems to this old snorer, is a pretty personal item. It’s not a fridge or a table. Not even a sofa, although sometimes the couch is the bed when we fall asleep watching movies.
Anyway, I decided to build our own. A friend had given me two pickup loads of old oak and maple and madrona lumber, pretty gnarly, bark on, warped and cupped and bowed. Plenty enough to build a bed. Or two. One for us, one for the little 40’s house we just bought. One out of madrona, one out of oak. Both big. Queen-sized, actually. I won’t bore you with the construction details. Let’s just say I’ve been at it a couple of weeks. And they’re still not done.
I’m hoping the new bed will be like the new house when I built it back twenty years ago, the house I wasn’t really confident would replace the shack I’d loved for 17 years, shack ornot. I suspect it will. That’s the best part of homemade anything — you’ve built yourself right into it. And besides, I’ll put the brass bed back in the shack. Just the way it was when the mizzus first came out here. Might even plan a 2nd honeymoon. She can pick the bed….
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