Over a year after we've tolerated squeezing onto a Full-sized bed for the sake of saving up for house repairs, Tung and I finally decided to upgrade to a bigger bed. We spent a while debating on the best size to move up to. Both our parents, being relatively normal and petite Asian size, are sleeping on Queen beds, which in reality is only 6 inches bigger than a Full. That means each of us gets 3 extra inches after the upgrade. Hmm, that doesn't sound like that great of a deal. Buying into the American mentality, "The more you buy, the more you save," we decided that if we're going to upgrade, might as well aim big. After all, a King doesn't cost that much more than a Queen, but you get a whopping 18-22 inches more space than a Full.
Then came the debate, California or Eastern King? The choice seemed obvious to us in our ignorance--we'd prefer the width over the length, both being not very tall people, and besides, due to the shape of our room and the furniture we already have in it, having more space at the foot of the bed for the sake of heavy traffic seemed like a good idea.
Thus, we started to shop around at various furniture stores (and really should have gotten the hint when all the salespeople kept re-questioning our decision to get an Eastern vs. a California King). Amazingly, after nit-picking over various bed frame styles, we both honed in on the Martini Suite collection by Ashley at Ramos Furniture. That's how you immediately know it's "the one." It was a bit over our budget, as was the Simmons Beautyrest mattress we bought at a different store, Payless Furniture, where we actually got extreme hookups on the price. But we figure this would be a keeper over the years and therefore a logical investment.
Here's a picture of my old, Full-sized bed frame. Tung's friend took the mattress off our hands for his children to use, and we ended up donating the frame to Salvation Army to make space in the rooms.
Then came the debate, California or Eastern King? The choice seemed obvious to us in our ignorance--we'd prefer the width over the length, both being not very tall people, and besides, due to the shape of our room and the furniture we already have in it, having more space at the foot of the bed for the sake of heavy traffic seemed like a good idea.
Thus, we started to shop around at various furniture stores (and really should have gotten the hint when all the salespeople kept re-questioning our decision to get an Eastern vs. a California King). Amazingly, after nit-picking over various bed frame styles, we both honed in on the Martini Suite collection by Ashley at Ramos Furniture. That's how you immediately know it's "the one." It was a bit over our budget, as was the Simmons Beautyrest mattress we bought at a different store, Payless Furniture, where we actually got extreme hookups on the price. But we figure this would be a keeper over the years and therefore a logical investment.
Here's a picture of my old, Full-sized bed frame. Tung's friend took the mattress off our hands for his children to use, and we ended up donating the frame to Salvation Army to make space in the rooms.
We finished shopping for both bed and frame by early July and eagerly anticipated the delivery. Enter the beginning of a nightmare. After having to call Ramos once and coming back to the store to sign for an "Easter King" (yes, literally, that's how the salesgirl spelled it) instead of a Cal-King like she had originally written us down for, we thought that the Eastern King was what we would get delivered to us. Well, we did get an Eastern King--but also about 3/4 of a Cal-King. Two parts of the bed--the right side rail and the slat roll--were the wrong size for our spanking-new, Eastern King mattress, which wouldn't fit in the frame.
Anyway, long and frustrating story short, which included several phone calls, several threats to throttle people, several rounds of re-delivery, and several communication issues with the sales and delivery people, we finally got the correct bed parts delivered and assembled. You don't know irritation until you paid buck-loads for a huge piece of furniture that comes in the wrong size, and you can't use it until 2 months later.
Anyway, long and frustrating story short, which included several phone calls, several threats to throttle people, several rounds of re-delivery, and several communication issues with the sales and delivery people, we finally got the correct bed parts delivered and assembled. You don't know irritation until you paid buck-loads for a huge piece of furniture that comes in the wrong size, and you can't use it until 2 months later.
Notice that in the "Before" picture above (which features Tung's box-frame bed that we used after mine was hauled away), Tung was still living with my ghetto-rigged moving box/night stand on the left. We also bought matching night stands from the Martini collection. It took me a while to get over the size-shock of this bad boy in our Master bedroom after having slept on a Full for so long. I kept on having to tell myself that it would be much like when I upgraded to the Full from my old Twin bed. It feels like there's no open space left in the room, but once you lie on all that luxury, you never want to go back to the smaller size!
So the lesson here, folks, is that if you live in California and want to upgrade to a King-sized bed, for the love of Pete, if you could at all fit it in your room, buy a Cal-King instead of an Eastern King! Wasn't the regular (Eastern) King size once the norm? Now, it's almost impossible to find linens in EK! Like our mattress and bed frame, it's like you've got to special-order EK linens. But, major problem hurdled. I can't wait to sleep on my new bed with fresh linens tonight.
And while furniture shopping, we also bought a replacement for the small dining set the previous house owners left us, affectionately dubbed by us as "the bitch table." From a work surface for home-improvement projects to a place where we could toss junk of any kind, that table with its several chairs of ripped-up leather served us for a year-and-a-half. Getting rid of it was a bigger ordeal than we thought, as no charity would take it with 4 passable chairs left that weren't ripped.
And while furniture shopping, we also bought a replacement for the small dining set the previous house owners left us, affectionately dubbed by us as "the bitch table." From a work surface for home-improvement projects to a place where we could toss junk of any kind, that table with its several chairs of ripped-up leather served us for a year-and-a-half. Getting rid of it was a bigger ordeal than we thought, as no charity would take it with 4 passable chairs left that weren't ripped.
Nothing like newness. Notice that we covered the microfiber seats with a vinyl layer, in anticipation of the messiness of our future kids, and also because we're cheap that way and aren't looking to replace this set anytime soon.
Furniture bundle deals are great, even if we did go a bit above budget. After all, "Bigger is better," and "The more you buy, the more you save!"
