"This happened."

So the transition did not go well.  At all.  Basically, Everett did not spend a single second in his bed.  He broke a drawer in his dresser, emptied his sock drawer and laundry basket, pulled every single book off his shelf (around 100 books), and scaled the gate we put up in his doorway to keep him in his room.  It was a long afternoon because of no nap and all the frenzy, so when he had a minute later that day, he actually fell asleep in the middle of the family room floor. Mom and Dad had to regroup before we attempted bedtime.  

At bedtime, we both stayed in there and literally put him back in his bed every time he tried to get out.  This lasted more than 3 hours.  Finally I told Billy to go get the crib side we took off and put it back on.  Everett needed to sleep and being in his whole crib again was the only way (I hoped).

It worked and he slept.  Only to arise at 5am the next day and come bounding in our room ready to go.  We then woke up, went out, and bought a new crib and ordered a crib tent for it. Everett may have won this round, but we wanted a rematch.