*Lyrics from Don Henley‘s ‘adult contemporary hit’ from 1989 called New York Minute. It was literally playing in my head immediately as we encountered just how small our pied-a-terre really was. And as we learned the hard way just how quick your brain must be to survive rapid and abrupt changes in plans. (And how quickly we learned that crap songs from the late 80s will stay in your brain for.ev.er. whether you like it or not.)

The dreaded hallway. This has changed many a design plan, let me tell you.

So, remember way back when (I’m sure you won’t) to when I mentioned that I was hunting for a new bed? That was years ago, and I never stopped looking, just never found one worth writing about. The bed we’ve been, erm, enjoying for lo’ these past nearly 7 years is in fine shape, and totally decent. Not broken, not rickety, not smashed up or damaged in any way. It’s just not, well, sexy, or scintillating, or luxurious. I guess you’d say it’s more of a handsome bed – which is all well and good – but I was craving more than just handsome. So I kept on looking.

Then we semi-moved to NYC to our little pied-à-terre, and everything changed. We put our house on the market, we downsized to a just-barely-big-enough space, and the bed hunting, well, it just fell by the wayside. That is, until I spied the Vanguard Brea bed on sale from Horchow. Don’t ask me how I first saw it – likely Pinterest or some such place – but when I did, I knew it had all the properties I was looking for. Upholstered and tufted? Check. Nailhead trim? Check (even though this was not in the list of needs for Jeff). Neutral enough to live through several bedroom designs (we’re not looking for a short-term piece of furniture here), headboard tall and elegant enough to make the bed feel like a nest and a respite from daily life woes, and sturdy enough to last many, many years. It had it all. And it was on sale. We jumped at it, and in an attempt to be efficient we thought we should have the bed delivered to The Pied rather than the house. We figured we’d save on having to haul the bed back and forth , plus it would give us a touch of richness in our bare bones apartment. We thought we were geniuses.

We were so very wrong. Not only did we neglect to measure the hallway (which we knew was quite tight, and which we painstakingly measured for our initial furniture deliveries), we also didn’t have accurate measurements from Horchow. Double whammy. So, when the bed was unexpectedly ready to deliver early – just days before Christmas, in fact – we thought we were getting a really great early gift. In fact, I didn’t even get anything else for Jeff (except for some grapefruit and smoked salt marmalade). I was sure we had everything covered. Until the delivery guys couldn’t even make it up the first flight of stairs with the headboard. Until we realized with regret that we’d have to figure out how to bring the bed (and split box spring) up to Massachusetts on Sunday, December 23rd, with no notice, and no expectations of having to do so. We went to the box and we felt shame.

After we were done freaking out, and figuring out, and renting trucks, and driving on NYC highways (usually native New Yorker Jeff does that bit), we got the bed home, and set it up. And, after adjusting our expectations to accept that the large gap all around the mattress (for sheets, blankets, etc., to tuck in neatly) was actually a smart thing rather than a poor design choice, we stepped back and realized how in love with the bed we were. After years of looking, after gargantuan effort (or at the very least twice as much effort as we were expecting), after forgetting to measure, and after hauling things up and down we had finally found our nest. And it is glorious.

Phew. Pictures, for your vicarious enjoyment. xoxo