Monday, June 30, 2008

Guard rail solution & nautical-themed bedroom

The first Talk About Tuesday each month is a "Talk about your house" post. This is Ty's room - My mom painted the lighthouse mural for him. The lighthouse and clouds have also had a coat of Woolite applied to them so they will glow in black light. There used to be a 'cue' board hanging next to the mural which is why it ends so abruptly. I think we'll extend the mural to cover the wall behind the door as well.


The real reason I'm showing you his room is the recent fix Mr. O made to his bed. Ty weighs about 80 lbs or so and is 5'1". There is guard rail that runs the length of his loft bed to ensure that he doesn't roll out in the night. However, it has become increasingly difficult to lift him over the rail. We were about to resort ot a hospital bed - and you all know how attractive those are. See the silver bits by the board end? That's Mr. O's stroke of genius -

Here's a closeup. They are electrician box thingies (highly technical term) that you can find at Home Depot. He took the lag bolts out and now we just slide his rail out before we transfer him to his wheelchair or into the bed. The best thing about it is that we don't have to go bed shopping. If I were worried that he might be able to push the rail up and out of the slides, I'd simply install a slide lock above the rail.

We used to have glow-in-the-dark stars hanging from fishing wire that was tacked into the ceiling - the black light worked wonders on those and a fan blew them all around - it was like having twinkling stars in there. I recently took those down feeling that maybe 15 is too old for that kind of stuff. I'd like to continue the nautical theme - any suggestions?