New Stuff

In events that had little to nothing to do with Christmas, a couple of people (if you consider Ranger people), had new things come into their life today.

Our birthday present to Davan was a new bed.  Here was her old one:

It would appear that there is nothing particularly wrong with it.  Davan wasn't interested in a larger bed. Although we did offer her a double bed, she declined, not wanting to take up that much space in her room with something as boring as a bed.  Davan likes the drawers under the bed.  Due to them, she doesn't actually have a dresser in her room, which would also take up valuable space better suited to swinging and the like.  She had the most comfortable mattress in the house.  That was due to, years ago, us shopping around for a mattress for her first single bed, which we spent a good couple of weeks doing, but then, sadly, when we were looking at a top of the line mattress, we just shrugged, said, "What the heck," and bought it.

So, why get her a new bed?

This bed, which you obviously don't pick up in the picture, stinks.  We're talking some serious funk here.

At some point, either Davan, who occupied this bed years ago, then moved to her loft bed for a while, or an exchange student, a couple of whom occupied this bed during the time that Davan was in her loft bed, dropped food down the side of the bed that was up against the wall and then did nothing clean up said food.

When we were in our previous house, we'd noticed that the back room, where this bed resided, was pretty musty smelling and we worked on fixing that situation.  We aired, Febrezed, used pre-vacuuming powder on the carpet, pulled the bed out to see if there was anything lingering under it...and some things seemed to help, but the musty smell would always come back.

Well, when we were getting ready to move, we took the bed apart and discovered the large patch of mold.  I scrubbed it, bleached it, put it out in the sun for days...and we hoped that would take care of it.  It was the perfect bed for Davan here with the drawers and all.

However, it was not long after moving that we realized that the problem was not solved.  At first, we thought it was just the condo that had been closed up so long that smelled a little off.  When the weather changed and Davan didn't have her window open very often, it seemed to get worse.  Eventually, I had to face the fact that her bed still had issues.

I put an air freshener under her bed.  That just layered a chemically cinnamon smell over the top of the musty-nes.  I aired out when she was out of the house.  The smell lingered.

Recently, I realized that the smell was the worst up by the head of her bed, even though the part of the frame that had taken the brunt of the rotting food was at the foot of her bed.

I'd been worrying for a while that this wasn't healthy for her.  We'd been going to go small on her birthday this year, considering the trips up to Vancouver we're doing this winter not to mention the negative flow of money that tuition for boarding school next year may bring.  But, I decided that a new bed was in order.

Davan was excited, even though it's a fairly practical gift.  She had a bit of a hard time deciding.  We'd gone to look at options prior to the Colorado trip, but she still wasn't sure.  Yesterday, though, we went up to IKEA and she chose.  She chose such a simple (and inexpensive bed) that we threw in new bedding and a bedside table (also quite inexpensive) as part of the deal.  I posted the old bed on Freecycle (we didn't feel right selling it, even if we could have gotten away with it).

This morning, the old bed was picked up, we threw open all of the windows during a break in the rain, and Davan and Anthony got to work assembling her new bed.  (I did other housework and left them to it.)

We were all pleased with the results.

Ranger, who was more than a little concerned about her bed leaving, was happy to be invited up on the new one.

We're all happy with the lack of unpleasant odor.

That wasn't the only new thing for Ranger today, though!

Isn't she sweet in her new collar?  (Thanks, Mom.)

And, while Licorice has had nothing new today, here's a picture of her just 'cause she's been complaining that she gets no play on the blog.

She was dozing on the arm of the chair, but had her paw out on the side table to keep herself in balance, I guess.

Sleep tight tonight, Davan.  Enjoy the mold-free environment.  (Aren't we just great parents?)