three to a room [the beds]

If you follow me on Instagram, you'll know that we have finally straightened out our kid's shared nursery and now it can successfully sleep three little children. Successfully, being a word I'm choosing in faith! It's been a bit of an uphill transition for Oli leaving his crib, and surprisingly Lily having him up in her grill, but the room looks great and I know our kids just need time to adjust.

To start with, we had a couple challenges and few options for sleeping arrangements. Since our oldest just turned three a couple of weeks ago, we weren't comfortable having her on a top bunk, no matter how low the bunk beds were. I think bunk beds are a great option in small spaces for sleeping many children, but when the children in question are all toddlers and babies, it's not my favourite option. Probably in our next house, but for now, I needed another option.

With bunk beds out, there were a couple of other options but none really worked. Lily's twin bed and Oli's crib already took up most of the extra room in the space, so an additional twin bed, crib, or adding a toddler bed were all going to drastically cramp the already small room. I also didn't love the idea of buying a toddler bed or crib since it's use is limited to such a short time, but a second twin would never fit. Then we discovered the trundle bed.

It's a slightly raised twin bed with a bed on wheels underneath. It's essentially a very condensed bunk bed, so you get two twin beds without sacrificing any space. We could keep the layout of the kids room exactly the same yet sleep three instead of two (when Little Sister moves into the crib, Oli can take over the bottom "bunk" of the trundle bed). Eureka!

Now to find one. IKEA had one option but I didn't like the top bed at all. It reminded me of my bed at university when I stayed in residence - a big old box. If we couldn't find another though, it would work. I believe the whole unit (bed and underneath trundle) was $260 or so and the bedroom event was on so that would be 15% off. Not bad, though we also had to buy a second mattress too. I was also scouring Kijiji and Craigslist daily for weeks (maybe months?) and had never found anything like what I wanted. In fact, the whole time I was looking I only came across three trundle beds at all! They're not so common, and the sellers of the first two seemed really sketchy. Not someone I'd want to buy a bed from, let's just say!

Then we struck Kijiji gold and found our unicorn. It was a trundle day bed, including two very new, very thick Simmons mattresses, in our neighbourhood, sold by a lovely, older, wealthy, couple of empty nesters who only used it as a guest bed a handful of times... FOR A HUNDRED BUCKS. And time was on my side, because it had only been posted 2 hours earlier! I called frantically to secure the bed, Brad biked over the $100 that evening, and it was ours!

Now, about the mattresses. I was skeptical. I know all about bed bugs, and I just as soon assumed we'd toss them as soon as we got the bed. Even the bed and trundle for $100 was a steal, so I wasn't desperate. And we only needed one mattress since Lily had one already (though it was a really thin poor quality IKEA one that cost $99 last year). But then we met the couple, saw their spotless home, heard their story (they'd only used it as a guest bed for visiting family a handful of times and bought it brand new), and were sold. Plus we got bedbug resistant mattress protectors ;)

After sanding the bed and painting it white, we started assembling it and quickly decided to ditch the daybed sideboard. I didn't know it was optional but it's completely structurally sound without it, and wasn't totally my style. The kids LOVE their bed, we love their bed, and it only cost us $100. Kind of the best news ever when you're having your third baby in four years and expenses (hello, new car) are adding up!

So that's how we're sleeping three kids, three and under, in the same small bedroom in our city condo. How it's going is another story that I'll share soon!