More Adventures in Furniture

We were at IKEA when the doors opened, and we headed straight to the stacks, where we could not find the items we wanted. Despite the signs touting the existence of the larger pieces, the staff said they couldn't find any, so, rather than take our chances driving to Emeryville, we decided to take what they had. Besides, the desks we bought yesterday are too large to fit in my van and will have to be delivered, so we needed to get as much into a single delivery as possible.

After spending around 45 minutes waiting for the staff on the warehouse floor to tell us that they couldn't find the large items (and standing guard over one of the few mediums available to prevent someone else from snagging it) and another 45 minutes waiting through the queue to order delivery, we were finally done. After securing a couple of smaller pieces we'd also purchased in my van, I said to cherylmorgan "We need a reward for surviving the IKEA experience. Coffee and cinnamon rolls in the Bistro!"

Today we must start assembling some of the pieces we brought home yesterday (and getting rid of the older stuff we aren't keeping), along with boxing up loose stuff (mostly books) to get them out of the way long enough to make room to do the assembly and so forth. The next few days are going to be very busy, particularly, I think, when we have to disassemble the entire computer room and remove all of the machines from it so we can get the existing folding desk and shelves out of it and install the pair of desks we just bought.

Continuing Saga of Furniture

Fortunately for me, cherylmorgan has assembled IKEA furniture before, and was able to guide me through the process. The directions are pretty clear; however, you have to be careful about some pieces whose connectors are symmetrical even though the parts themselves are not. As the worst example of this, as I was putting the finishing touches on a bedside table, we realized that I had installed a piece of the trim backwards, with the finished side to the wall and the "flat" side forward. If we'd spotted this at an earlier step, it would have been easier to reverse, but we were past the point where I had attached the backing plate with nails. Nails are difficult to reverse, whereas the wood screws and the clever IKEA connectors are relatively easy. Fortunately, Cheryl was able to coax the piece out and reverse it without me having to try and draw out at least eight small nails.

Speaking of nails, I did manage to drive one nail sufficiently crookedly that it missed the board and shot out the side of the case. It took me maybe twenty minutes to get enough purchase on the nail to draw it out without doing further damage. The overall harm to the piece is minor and probably wouldn't be noticed unless you were looking for it.

So, after one day of assembly, we have the following complete:

Two LEKSVIK bedside tables.

One BILLY 31 x 79-inch bookshelf

Two BILLY 16 x 79-inch bookshelves

Still to come:

A chest of drawers that will let me scrap an old one with a broken door with which I've been living for more than ten years. We have the pieces, but probably won't have time to assemble it until this weekend, as we are busy the rest of this week.

A pair (left and right) facing GALLANT work desks (T-leg option). These await delivery because they're too large to fit into my van unless I were to wrestle the seats out of it, and we're willing to pay the delivery charges instead.

These are the desks that I used their office-planner software to arrange and calculate that they'll fit, but with only about an inch to spare. In fact, we may be better off disassembling the office, pulling the computer equipment and other stuff out the room, then assembling the desks in this room, rather than in the living room, because otherwise we'll have to get the desks from the living room to the work room, which could get tricky.