Furniture Assembly Party

When most people see "assembly required," they shudder inwardly. When I see that, I get a little bit excited.

I know, it's kind of sick but...I like to assemble furniture. I take it as a challenge. I have assembled at least forty different furniture pieces, cabinets, or chairs in our home and given that we can't really afford pre-assembled masterpieces, that trend is probably going to continue. This week, I had my DIY eye on new kitchen chairs and a bathroom wall cabinet.

The bathroom cabinet turned out to be rather difficult to assemble, mostly because you need flexible shaft screwdriver or an extremely short stubby screwdriver to complete it, and, of course, they don't tell you that. I had to take some time out to search the garage for the right tool, grumbling all the way.

(Please understand that while I like to assemble furniture, I often get angry and swear at inaccurate instructions, vague descriptions and missing parts. But somehow I think it is cathartic to have my little tantrums while doing my best to complete the assembly in the most efficient way possible. It works for me.)

After getting the cabinet assembled, I headed upstairs for dinner and some tinkering on the chairs. Now, the wooden kitchen chairs are from IKEA, which means that they are inexpensive, strangely lightweight, and accompanied by bizarre instructions. Because IKEA sells their Swedish furniture worldwide, they like to make pictorial instructions that contain no words, removing the need for translation. Trouble is, I can't always figure out what their drawings mean and I go a little crazy. "What is that guy holding in his hand? A screwdriver? An allen wrench? What?!?" "Is he twisting or pounding it? Does that even fit? Do I use the wood glue?" You get the idea.

Nonetheless, I begin the assembly in the same way as always: by turning to Kathy and saying, "time me." Yeah, I know, it probably reminds you of that commercial where the woman is on the bad blind date and the guy says, "I'm going to the bathroom. Time me." Maybe I'm a really bad date! I dunno. But, Kathy humors me by checking her watch. Then I start to layout all the parts, checking them off on the sheet before I begin. You start to see the attraction, I'm sure: furniture assembly is a tribute to obsessive-compulsive behavior.

After finishing one or two chairs while we watched TV, Kathy said, "You don't have to do them all tonight. You can finish them later in the week." I just looked at her like she was crazy. After all, she was timing me. Must do it now!

Finally, I finished all four chairs, checked my time (this time it was okay-usually, I think I should have done it faster), and gave it a rest for a few days.

Tonight, however, I was back at it, this time recovering all four chair-seats with the lilac cotton duck that I bought in San Francisco. No crappy staple-gun job for me; I made sure these are taut, smooth seats that look like they just came out of the showroom. They match our kitchen walls perfectly.

If only I could get the feeling back in my right arm...there's a flat-pack bookcase with my name on it. I'm thinking I can get it together in under 45 minutes. Hmmm.

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