Knowledge is power! The checkerboard made it around the edges just fine. The extra row added 7 extra 4-patch units for each long side. The way Bonnie designed things, each row (not including the corner) starting and stopped on Red. With my extra row, the lengths ended with one end each red and white. The Bottom row then started out with White. But turning the corner and going back up the same number (7) of 4-patches and everything worked out just fine.
I was feeling like the border would be a horrible slog and it wasn't bad at all -- making the 4-patches was the slog!
I'll have more to say and some pictures to show after the hubby gets up and I can use the design bed.