If You Build It...

Sometimes, my life really does seem straight out of Sex and the City...

And then there are the Saturday nights spent assembling furniture.

Ugh, THIS is why I loved living with Kurt for so long! I hate the time it takes to decorate a place, to find the right thing for every little nook and cranny...the process of realizing some of your old stuff just doesn't fit, what to keep, what to chunk, blech. And I have a studio, for heaven's sake! Nevertheless, I want it to look "just so"...and I needed a lingerie chest for pure functionality.

After several weeks of online perusing, I decided to order this Hemnes chest from Ikea. It was only $150, plus $50 for shipping.

It arrived today, which was perfect, as I'd devoted the weekend to finalizing my decor anyway. Unfortch, as soon as I started to read the instructions, I saw this:

I could only assume it meant, "Hey, dumbass, don't try to put this together by yourself."

So, I laid out the pieces and texted good ol' Adam to see what he was up to.

He had dinner plans but offered to drop by on his way. Such a sweetheart! By the time he got here, I was well underway, and he put in a good 45 minutes to help me get it upright by the time he left.

As evidence of how hard he was working, he even got a little workman's butt going on... (He told me to take a picture of it because he could feel the breeze!)

He left for dinner at about 8:30, and by around 10, I was done! It was nowhere near as frustrating as I'd worried it might be. I am fascinated by some of the ingenious hardware they use and wonder how much of it is unique/proprietary. I wish Uncle Howard had been here, as I think he would approve of the fact Ikea even seemed to use real wood! The overall quality is actually much better than I anticipated.

Here's a look at the finished product. I like it so much, I'm not sure I will be able to keep it tucked away in the closet, which was my original intent.

Woot! Woot! When I started the project around 7 p.m., I posted this on Facebook: Ikea dresser assembly: to be filed under "wow, I'm really proud of myself" or "gee, that was a stupid idea"?

I got some very funny comments, but I'm tickled to say the answer was definitely the former! Big shout-out to Adam for helping me out and to my cute neighbor Cyrus for bringing down a beer in the home stretch.