Paul Balmer (of those excellent canal maps) left a comment asking how I knew the orange PVC pipe would have sufficient strength to hold the weight of the bed. A good questions…. .and I didn’t “wing it” when opting to purchase the pipe. I’d previously purchased a length of the same pipe which was installed under the shed concrete pad, so I knew how strong the pipe was.
The first step with this project was to drain the two bladders that make up 75% of the mattress. It’s not the first time we’ve moved a water bed and we used the same method. Syphon the water out to the lawn using the garden hose. Just remember to get the timing right when sucking the end of the hose otherwise you get a mouth full of chemically treated water.
Syphoning doesn’t remove all the water. However when I’ve removed as much as possible using this method I recapped the bladder and took it outside laying it upside down on the BBQ table to drain. Once both bladders had been removed I could then relocate the mattress base and separate the two halves of the bed. Jan had already emptied the drawers thereby reducing the weight. We then rolled each half 90° onto the PVC rollers with the Jarrah side facing up. It was then a matter of rolling each half out of the bedroom into the formal lounge room. As rollers came free at the back they were reposition at the front.
We’re sleeping on the 2nd spare bed in the lounge room along with all the furniture. It’s rather crowded and the spare bed is only 5’6” wide which doesn’t give us much room after getting used to the water bed.
With the bed removed I could complete the last of the painting. This involved cutting a 2 inch strip off the boundary of the existing carpet in order to paint all the way down to floor level. Eventually all of the painting was complete allowing Dean to install the new 2kW air conditioner above the bed.
At 2kW the air conditioner has more capacity than is required to keep the bedroom at a comfortable temperature. We could have installed a 1kW unit, however the logic behind the 2kW unit is it can form a backup should the 5kW unit in the family room fail. We’re waiting on the new carpet to be laid before moving back into the bedroom.
We also had a visit from local blog reader Ken and his lovely wife, Elaine. Ken had mentioned some family members have gone down with the flu (it’s winter here in Perth). Now that we are old we need to consider the potential dire consequences of catching the flu. Ken needed to be checked out for symptoms and (of course) I needed to protect myself. It’s important to keep the potential problem at arms length!
No signs of the flu and we settled down to discuss future plans.
Ken has invited me to join him in August on an I-Venture Day north of Perth. The I-Venture Day is a one day training event conducted by Isuzu Australia. The trainer teaches participants how to get the maximum off road performance from their stock Isuzu. This should be very useful as we are planning to travel the Holland Track together in September (more on that later)
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