Having survived Ikea relatively unscathed I was feeling confident about assembling the unit, after all the display version looked like it comprised of only a few pieces.
Emptying the box gave me 4 bags of different screws, screw caps wooden plugs and an alun key along with a double sided sheet of instructions with various pictures showing different angles of the assembly with arrows and codes for the different screws etc. Of course, looking at the key for the codes I couldn’t really tell which screw was which as the differences were so small.
Reading through the instructions it became clear it would be easier to do things in a slightly different order than they suggested so I began screwing shelves into one of the side panels feeling confident that the unit would be up within half an hour. I will never doubt flat pack instructions again. It became horribly clear once I had finished screwing all the shelves in one side that I was wrong and the instructions were right, and to add insult to injury I had attached the shelves upside-down, something I didn’t really think was possible, so I had to undo all the shelves and start again.
Two hours and a sore back later the unit was assembled. It looks great, and has provided adequate storage for all the stuff that needed a home. However I can’t take any pleasure from looking at it yet, the wounds are still too raw, flat pack furniture has the ability to crush a man without even trying, men aren’t designed to follow instructions step by step, we are men, we know how to put furniture together thank you very much.
The dog toy proved a great hit though, and I was very thankful for the distraction while I wrestled with the damn storage unit - he loves to get involved in things and I think that would have been the final straw. Occasionally he would bound up with this lime green toy dangling from his jaws just to see what the swearing was about, then would skitter off joyfully shaking the life out of it as he went. The seams are starting to split, it won’t be long before I’m finding bits of lime green material and stuffing trailed round the flat, at least one of us is happy!