When we first moved into our house, we had to choose the layout of bedrooms. One, while for realtors’ purposes being classified as a bedroom, was in fact too small to serve as one. That became the office that Namine and I share for school and work, respectively. The other two rooms became our bedrooms. One had a wider, more accessible entryway, which we had intended on becoming Namine’s room. Unfortunately, the bedframe for our bed was too bulky, heavy, and unwieldy to get into the other bedroom. Not wanting to sacrifice our nice (and frankly, expensive) frame, we took the one room into which it fit. We gave Namine the other bedroom, whose entryway was narrower but into which her wheelchair still fit.
Fast forward to roughly a year and a half later, and we hope to get Namine’s new wheelchair fairly soon. (We’re experienced enough to know that we still have a while to wait, but still.) We knew what we had to do, unpleasant as it was: we had to move Namine to the room with the larger doorway. To do that, we had to first get rid of our bedframe. And unlike the day we moved in, when we had friends and family here to help, I would have to do it myself.
This bedframe had been with us for a long time, over a decade. Its craftsmanship was unparalleled by any other furniture we’ve ever owned, but an evening with it revealed to me its secrets. I took it apart and slid its pieces down the stairs, where it now resides.
It left an empty room, waiting for me to move Namine’s bed and belongings.
Most of Namine’s things, including her toy and clothing furniture, was easy enough to move. Her bed, however, was too bulky to move without completely disassembling it. So I took it apart, moved it piece by piece, and put it back together inside her new room.
I do want to mention another reason we had given Namine the room we did from the start. The closet in her original bedroom had racks that she could reach, sans grabber, from her wheelchair. The other bedroom did not. Because of that, we reasoned that she could make do with the narrower doorway. (She agreed.)
With her new, wider wheelchair on the horizon, we knew that couldn’t last. We found, however, that Namine could actually reach the adult-oriented closet rack. We do still plan on swapping the closet racks — it makes more sense to do so — but now we know that its current state is no impediment to Namine using it.
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