Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Another Man's Clutter

An impulse purchase from Costco, the unassembled kitchen cart had been gathering dust in the garage. If I were to make any progress toward my resolution to clear the clutter, I would have to unpack the box.

Soon more than a hundred parts were strewn across the garage floor. Bye, bye Saturday.

Years of struggling with Ikea furniture have taught that it does pay to scan the entire instruction booklet before starting. Getting a feel for the proper sequence saves time in the long run. First attach A to B, else C will not fit into D. Observe carefully which way the arrows point and which side the holes are on.

(If you’ve never put something together backwards during a project, dear reader, you’re a better person than I.) A power screwdriver prevented the sore wrist that the inexperienced me used to get, and this time I spent only 20 minutes reversing a couple of mistakes.

Half a day later, which is the normal completion time for do-it-yourself furniture, the cart was done. At 47” wide x 24” deep x 39”high it’s somewhat large for the kitchen, but I’m not going to give it away after so much effort. I’m sure it will be put to good use. One man's cart is another man's clutter. © 2009 Stephen Yuen

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Good Job Steve. I am impressed. Did you know IKEA hire people as contractor, so you can help other families who struggle with putting together bookcases/ student desk????

Stephen said...

Ada, thanks for the suggestion. This accounting/finance gig seems to be on its last legs...assembling IKEA furniture may be the way to finally do something useful.