I just finished putting together a “high-back glider chair” from a company called Country Garden. I’m not used to doing this and it took me about two hours. But at least it supports my weight, feels solid, and I used all of the packaged nuts, bolts, screws and other fasteners; nothing’s left over.
Tell me your stories of successfully navigating instructions written in ancient Urdu by a one-armed mystic suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. Tell me about manipulating wood, metal and plastic to find out a bolt is loose in the bowels of the chair you just put together-- and you’re not about to undo hours of painstaking work to take the chair apart and do the work over. You’ll just put an extra cushion down to cut down on the chances of getting impaled by a slat working itself loose.
I’ve gotten pretty good at it over the years. Mostly bookcases, though.
The most complicated item was an entertainment center. It has two glass doors, two regular doors and a large slide-out tape holder. It took about an hour-and-a-half. The biggest hitch was standing it up after construction (it had to be assembled on its back).
I’m pretty good at it, but it helps to have someone with you to help out. Like Mr. Blue Sky, the entertainment center was my biggest problem, though ours required holding three sides together while trying to screw the fourth one on. An octopus would’ve been useful.
Rotten. My husband and I bought a Sauder entertainment center several years ago. Supposedly it had been tested out on a group of third graders. “Hey,” we thought, “That shouldn’t be too hard.”
It ended up taking my husband (a college professor) and my father (a manufacturing engineer) two nights to get the freaking thing together.
Never again! We’ll pay extra for pre-assembled or pay to have them put it together here.
I’ll never forget my mother sitting on our living room couch watching them work. She took a deep drag on her unfiltered Pall Mall and said: “You know, nuns live longer than most people because they don’t have any stress.” It had nothing to do with the conversation or anything. It was just a stream of consciousness burp or something.
Now everytime my husband and I look at the entertainment center we say, “You know, nuns don’t have any stress.”
I love cheapo boxed furniture. My ultimate achievement (nearly eclipsed by my subsequent construction of three full-height book cases) is this, consisting of some 17 individual components.
I’ll do it, I’ll do it! We bought a Sauder entertainment center years ago and I put it together all by myself, and only needed my husband’s help a few times, as GMRyujin said, when I need to hold three sides together and screw another part on. And standing it up after it was finished. It’s survived two moves, too.
I’ve put together a bunch of bookshelves, a small TV stand, an IKEA kitchen table and chairs set, and two desk sets.
I love putting furniture together. It’s fun. Like friedo said… it’s like Legos for grown-ups!
Assembling Ikea-type furniture is one of the few housekeeping skills I’m good at. I’ve assembled everything from entertainment centers to desks all by myself, and always on the first time.
See, I love putting them together, cause we live in apartments, so I can’t build stuff here. So building boxed furniture is when I get to pull out my toolboxes, grunt, sweat, and swear, and otherwise act like a man.
The stuff’s pretty damn sturdy, too. I have a TV cart back in Louisiana that’s been through three moves and 3 states over the last 9 years. It’s shaky, but it still holds the old TV.
Every piece of furniture in my apartment, except for my bed, has come from Ikea.
This means I’m well practiced.
I don’t particularly enjoy putting the stuff together, because it IS quite like deciphering from Urdu. But I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing what I need to be ready for.
-I will break a sweat, so comfortable shorts and a t-shirt are a must
-I will need my water bottle handy
-This will take a while, so I can’t have anything planned for a couple of hours
-It requires patience, which I sometimes lack, so the box of furniture may sit around until I’m damn good and ready
-Turn on the radio - you need some distraction
-I will need space and elbow room - clear a path, people!
Once the planets have aligned and I’ve prepped the area, it’s go time. I will inevitably get frustrated. I’ve even gotten so pissed that I’ve cried. But in the end, the furniture looks good. I’ve decided I’m quite emotionally invested in my furniture, since I gave my blood, sweat and tears to put it together.
My uncle is an engineer, has his master’s in something or the other, but would probably hurt himself with a screwdriver. My girlfriend’s father is a engineer who helps design massive heating and cooling systems for industrial plants, but is useless fixing stuff around the house. I see this a lot.
Me, I looove putting together furniture. It’s exactly like Legos - just follow everything to the letter and you’re usually ok. In my experience, anyway.
In the 80’s my dad had a little Honda motorcycle, and bought the complete shop manual for it. When we tried to use it, it was obviously a word-for-word translation from the original Japanese, different syntax and all. THAT was interesting.
I am like a minor IKEA deity. I still get occasional calls from the ex when she’s been down to the warehouse shopping. I love it, never had a problem getting the stuff together (except for one bookshelf where the particle board was so loose the screw just tore it apart) and it looks good when I’m done.
I plan on getting an IKEA bed, several bookshelves, and a small computer desk when the money stops rolling out faster than it rolls in.
I love putting together boxed furniture. We are still using parts of the changing table we got from Ikea for our first child - who will be graduating college in June. We redid most of my wife’s office one day - 5 bookcases, and two storage units. It was great, no missing pieces or anything. However, I like doing 3 d puzzles also, and boxed furniture is a fairly simple 3d puzzle.
Only one horror story. We ordered a bed from a catalog, Crate and Barrel I think. I put it together fine, except one of the parts of the footboard was wrong. (It was asymmetric, and they send two lefts). I sent it back, and they sent another wrong part. After three weeks of this crap, we sent the entire bed back.
I have an Ikea shelf system and dining room set to put together as soon as my rec room redo is done. Just this year I have done a couple book shelves and a display rack. I have probably put together a couple dozen other items in the past. My biggest project will be this fall, I am going to install new kitchen counters and cabinets. Being from Ikea, this means I have to put everything together first. So far it looks like 34 separate items in 34 or more boxes. And I will probably have to rent a U-Haul truck to get it all home. I hope I know what I am getting myself into.
Racer72, while all the posts are great, I can’t help but pay special attention to your answer. I refinanced my mortgage with the intention of remodelling my kitchen. Granted, it’s a small kitchen in a one bedroom condo, but I’d like to stretch my dollars as far as possible. Is this a project that a single person can do? Have you done this sort of thing before? How much planning went into ordering your counters and cabinets? If it’s not too nosy, how large is your kitchen, how much did the cabinets and counters cost, and how much are you saving on labor?
On second glance, my last post looked quite rude. Sorry for the tone, Racer72, I was just really excited when I read your post. If it’s possible, could you relate some of your experiences with such a large, complicated order? How do you get started, what special features you’re getting ( lazy susans, fully extendable drawers, etc.). Thanks for any advice you can give.
