changing my bedroom

[mayalaen]

I don’t like change, the rooms in my house included.

But I’ve had this giant hand-me-down bedroom set for years. It’s too heavy for me to move to clean and I can’t get anybody to help.

I recently got a new mattress and it’s amazing, but I wasn’t planning on changing anything else.

I have asthma and allergies, and even though I have an air cleaner running in my room every night, it can only do so much when I can’t get a vacuum under the bed or behind and under the chest of drawers and nightstands (yes even the nightstands are ridiculously heavy).

So yesterday my mom was like you know you don’t have to keep those just because they’re hand-me-downs right?!

The thought hadn’t occurred to me (yay schizophrenic brain that gets stuck in boxes) that I could get rid of a bedroom set just because it doesn’t work for me instead of waiting for it to fall apart.

So yesterday I tore the bed apart and got all the pieces out of my bedroom and did a big cleaning. It took five hours to get the stupid bedroom set dismantled and out to the garage.

My bed is on the floor until the new frame arrives, but I’m super excited about the frame because it’s lightweight (super easy to move for cleaning) but made to withstand 3500 pounds. Like seriously they showed a car on top of this thing.

It wasn’t nearly as expensive as I thought it would be.

BTW why has cost of living gone up to unbearable levels but beds and frames are NOTHING compared to what they were when my parents were my age?! seriously the mattress alone was $1200 25 years ago (adjusted for inflation that’s $2300) and my new mattress was $250.

I have blankets thumb-tacked to all four walls in my bedroom to dampen sound from outside -- noisy neighborhood and sleeping like a paranoid schizophrenic means I wake up so so so much.

I took those blankets down and instead of tacking them back up (because it’s hard to wash them regularly) I’m going to hang them on curtain rods on the walls.

The room feels so much lighter already!

One of these days maybe I’ll realize some change is good and actively change things instead of stumbling into it without meaning to🙄

Comments

[amalthia]

I got rid of my queen bed for a twin just so I could easily clean around and under it. I also have the goal of all my new future furniture has to fit a vacuum cleaner head under it, or it doesn't come into the house. I have dust mite allergies so we've already removed all carpet and I got rid of curtains. that helped a lot! :)

[mayalaen]

I've done a lot of things to help with the allergies/asthma like getting rid of furniture that's too big to move and curtains, and I'd love to do more, like getting rid of carpet (carpet is so disgusting) but I have to balance that with being able to sleep through local noise 😭

I've started doing the thing of only buying furniture I can clean under like you've done or move easily to clean. It's such a big help!

[amalthia]

Whoever invented carpet was the worst! I don't think people realized how bad those would be for people with allergies. We have carpet downstairs and it's impossible to keep clean but it's too expensive to pay someone to remove it and replace it with vinyl, tile, or laminate. (not sure which material is best and affordable)

[mayalaen]

My dad installed flooring for most of his life, and yeah, he hates carpet and doesn't have it in his room. He likes to tell people horror stories about how even the cleanest of clients still had completely disgusting carpets.

With building materials as expensive as they are and contracting as flakey as it is in the last couple years, it's scary to hire someone to put flooring in.

He had a carpet cleaning machine and we kept that. It's nice to be able to use it whenever I get a chance. It's still not the same as tile flooring, but it definitely helps to wash carpet.

It was a business expense at the time and something most people can't afford out of pocket, which is sad because people should be able to wash their own carpets.

Carpet to me is like wearing the same clothes constantly and never washing them just brushing yourself off like that cleans it 🤮

[amalthia]

Yeah, I don't know why anyone ever thought it was a good idea to create carpet, or make it so hard to remove! I mean what was wrong with decorative floor rugs?