There was an old woman who swallowed a mattress

A few months ago, my PT (yupp, I was back in Physical Therapy since August for my back pain) said that if I really wanted to sleep better, I needed to get a Sleep Number bed. So, Andrew and I tested out a Sleep Number bed, liked it, and got one. With a little bit of grunt work, we put together the new bed and managed to squish our old (super comfy and huge) pillow top mattress down to the basement. A local charity came about a week later to pick up our old box spring (downstairs has a split box spring, since it's a narrow passage down the stairs). The story really should have been done from this point.

All was good, except one little issue - the new mattress is a lot thinner than my old pillow top bed, and whenever Andrew and I would look at the bed in our bedroom, it just looked a little sad.

Andrew and I had been looking at headboards for awhile, so I started shopping for a bed frame instead. We found the Marquette Bed on Amazon for an amazing $180 with free shipping - only $40 than the cheapie headboard I'd been eyeing. All reviews mentioned that the mattress + boxspring sit very high in the frame, and the style was a sleigh bed (love) meets traditional metal slat, and we figured it was worth a try. While the shipping seemed like it was going to be tortoise slow on its way from Mexico, MO, the frame arrived slightly early and was a breeze to assemble. We ended up with a gorgeous, sturdy bed that we both love - as do Morty and Elmo.

But there was a slight problem. The bed frame is actually 66 inches wide, which is a bit bigger than the standard queen- and this meant that there wasn't a lot of wiggle room between the edge of the bed and Andrew's dresser. Within hours of putting the bed together, my left hip was a tapestry of dark bruises, and the room felt really crowded.

Yes, if you're following so far, because of my back, we bought a bed. Because of the bed, we bought a frame. And oh yes, because of the frame, we were now in the market for a new dresser.

Andrew and I love old things, and Andrew has never been totally in love with his dresser - it was something we nabbed when his grandparents moved out of their house shortly before we got married, since it would "go"with my antique, family hand-me-down dresser that I've had ever since I was a little girl:

Isn't it cute how you can see Andrew reading in bed in the mirror?

So here was our assignment: find a thinner (roughly 30 inches) but taller (Andrew still needed dresser space) chest of drawers to match a 1920s - 1930's lady's dresser. I thought this would be a piece of cake, since our corner of Iowa seems to have a million antique stores. We decided to spend last Saturday going "antiquing."

Unfortunately, our dishwasher needed repairs, so we had to wait until the repairman showed up in his 8am-noon window. Zeke showed up at 11:54, so it was nearly 1pm by the time we hit the first store. Nada there. Planning ahead, I'd taken a little 3x5 card and wrote down the dimensions of my dresser, Andrew's current dresser, and the ideal measurements that we were looking for, so it was easy to leave our name in case the antique dealers we met might find the right thing later on. We grabbed lunch, and then walked over to the wonderful little store where I'd bought our dining room chairs...only to find out that it's now a jewelry store. Ugh. That's when I started to get a not-so-good feeling about how "easy" this task was going to be. And did I mention that we had set a strict budget for this project?

At our second stop, we found something that we were willing to consider. We were up for doing sanding and refinishing, as long as it didn't involve paint stripping (we've been there before). We found this beauty, for $112, well within our budget.

But Andrew wasn't really sold on the curves, and I wasn't sold with the quality of the top surface. I called my dad on our way to the next stop, and he told me that what I'd described was "delamination" and it was good that we walked away. Speaking of my dad, he'd recommended an antique mall about 45 minutes away, where my grandparents had taken him some 15 years ago. The place had a website and some beautiful furniture, but the prices...well, they matched the quality. Sure enough, we fell in love with the first thing we saw - calling it the "Cadillac," knowing immediately that we'd be comparing everything against this one - it would be gorgeous with my dresser.

However, the price was twice our budget, even after a markdown. We were about to leave, when I decided to go up to the cash register and ask about something that my dad had mentioned on the way.

"So, my dad was here about 15 years ago and said that there was a barn out in the country where there's things that need a little bit of work?"

"Well, there's not really a barn," said the cashier.
 "It's more like a really big shed. And it's at their family house."

She motioned toward a chatty older man. "He's the owner, he'll help you." We met Veryl and described what we were looking for. He took us right over to the Cadillac, but it was clear that even when he came down another $20, it wasn't going to work for our budget.

"I don't know if there's anything out at the house that would work, but let's go see." Within a few minutes, we had jumped into my little hatchback and we were chasing Veryl in his big van down through the country. Veryl got out and unlocked about six locks and let us in to the most amazing warehouse of antiques I have ever seen.

It was seriously like a movie. One of the items in the shed was a stained glass dome from a Masonic hall depicting all of the zodiac symbols. It was stunning. And from floor to ceiling, there were items in organized array. Sadly, I only have one photo from this amazing place - yet another dresser that was too expensive (and a little to light/bright for our taste).

So we left Veryl, the Cadillac, and the barn of wonder, and kept on trucking to a few more country stores with no success as everything was closing up. On the drive home, I insisted we continue the search on Sunday after church. Sunday was the first day of the cold snap, so the longer we shopped, the more it rained and got wind-swept. In another small Iowa city, we found something "close" - the taller, thinner version of Andrew's current dresser, but we wanted something older.

On Sunday night, Andrew talked to his dad, who happened to be refinishing a dresser for Andrew's stepsister and thought that Andrew's stepsister might be passing on the dresser due to limited space in her Chicago home. Andrew's dad sent us photos on Tuesday of a gorgeous dresser, and we said we'd take it if it wasn't already claimed.

On Wednesday, I was driving back from one of the college's more remote campuses, and gave Andrew a call. Andrew said within the last ten minutes, his dad had e-mailed to say that his stepsister still had the claim on the dresser, and Veryl had called to say he'd found something for us.

In a strange coincidence, I'd just left the town where Veryl's amazing store was located. Normally, I'd have to be rushing back to meet another student, but he'd just called me to reschedule. "Should I turn around?" I asked Andrew.

"Well, yeah!" Within another 10 minutes, I was being led by Veryl to the back of the showroom. When I saw the dresser, I gasped. It was gorgeous - a mix of the Cadillac and the one my father-in-law had sent us photos depicting. It had character but wasn't feminine. The size was perfect.

But the price - when I saw what Veryl had marked it at, my heart sunk. I'm not a good poker player, so I'm sure that showed on my face. But quickly, Veryl offered me a better price. It was still too high. "But did you want the mirror? I'll knock off $50 if you don't want the mirror." That extra $50 put us right at the top of the budget that Andrew and I had set.

"I'll take it!"

So Veryl and a younger guy slid the dresser into the back of my little hatchback, and I whizzed back home to show Andrew. Because I can't wait for anything, I already had Andrew's dresser emptied and half the drawers downstairs (we put the old dresser by our guest bed to hold extra linens) by the time he came home. We were both pretty giddy and we moved drawers throughout our house and effortlessly carried the new, very old, dresser inside.

Before I left, I asked Veryl where he found our dresser. "Oh, I went to this big place down in Mexico, Missourah." Good 'ol Mexico, MO.

But in case you're curious, the piece seems to originate from Illinois, just like us. Here's the cool stamp on the back, from Summerfield (wherever that is).

After all of these unexpected purchases and searches, there is a really wonderful result - I can't believe how much I love my bedroom - it actually looks like a pair of grown-ups sleep there.