Sunday, October 21, 2012

Alison vs Ikea

So, in the past 2-3 weeks I've had many battles with Ikea furniture.

I remember going to the showroom and everything looked so awesome.  HA President went and ordered everything and it was delivered to the house.  I think the fact that I didn't play a part in the ordering aided in the shock that occurred when I saw the 13 boxes in the TV room, outside my suite.  However, I forgot to take a picture of it all before I moved things around.  I was also under the impression that everything you needed to assemble the furniture was included in the box.  Boy, was I wrong.

Everything was delivered on Friday.  An alumna and I decided to tackle my headboard first.
Headboard?
This is as far as we got before we realized that we needed screwdrivers.  This is also when I realized that the headboard had to be mounted to the wall.  Not a pleasant surprise.

I tried assembling some chairs, but one of the holes wasn't drilled all the way through.  Thats when I gave up and decided to go to bed (back at WestMar).
The walls are actually tan, not lime green.

Saturday was a new day, and I was determined to get more of my furniture assembled.  After I got the chapter tool box the chairs were the first order of business.

My first Ikea success!

I tried to do some more work on the headboard, but I thought I had put it together backwards, since the unfinished edges were facing upwards.  Little did I know that I had, indeed, done it correctly, but I was just looking at the wall side of the headboard.  I also found out that taking apart Ikea furniture is extremely difficult.

The unfinished edge that cause a panic!
After some more work on the headboard, I got to the point where I couldn't do any more before it was wall mounted.  So, I decided to work on my table, thinking "Its a table.  How hard can it be?"

How can a table be this complicated?
I found that it was fairly difficult.  Especially when the pieces are dark wood, which makes it hard to see all the holes.

Lesson: If you do not notice every little detail in their instructions you will end up putting your table together wrong.

How far I got before I had to take it all apart ant start over.
Notice those little cut outs on the unfinished wood?  Yeah, those are supposed to be on the bottom, not the top.  So, I pretty much had to start completely over.  But, I finally got it all put together!

Success!
My bed took the longest, by far.  HA President's husband helped me.  It wasn't very difficult, just very tedious.

Mid-assembly
Bed fully assembled

Bed and headboard
Monday I tackled the dresser, all on my own.  Other than completely destroying one of the holes with a tiny screw and putting the drawer tracks on upside down, I did a pretty good job.

I thought I did everything right...

But then the drawers wouldn't go in.  Took a while to realize that the tracks were upside down.

Finished product
My bookcase was one of the most frustrating only because of the insanely tiny nails.

Before the cardboard backing, when I thought everything was going ok.

1.  Levitating nails?  2.  27 of them?  Really?

To put the nails in perspective.

I could barely hold the nails in my fingers to hammer them into place.  And I have pretty small hands.
Successful bookcase

Somewhere in those days I also assembled a couch.

Half assembled couch with the de-assembled table in the background.

Thats not right...

There we go.

Some of my next posts will include "Decorating my Room" and "My Desk Adventure"

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