Wednesday 15 August 2007

I Hate Flat-Pack Furniture !

...well, obviously I don't actually hate it once it's "up and running" - otherwise I wouldn't buy it! I just hate the hassle of having to put it together.

I desperately need more shelf space: I am tired of falling over piles of books. It's not good for the books, and it's not really good for me. The cat is starting to get irritated - I have piles of books on every available surface, including the sofa and the armchairs. This leaves only the chair in front of the computer... and I keep coming along and moving the cat so I can sit down and blog.

I tried looking at ready-made bookcases, but they were all terribly expensive: one bookcase would have cost about £130. And then I would have had to pay the delivery costs. I bought four flat-pack bookcases for £80...

...but now I need to unpack and assemble them... the problem is, first I have to clear enough floor space so that I can lay all the stuff out! Hmmmn... maybe I'll leave it until tomorrow!

8 comments:

gemoftheocean said...

My sympathies....!! A number of years back, I did buy about 5 really nice large oak bookcases. [I have many other bookcases of varying quality too] But it's amazing how many books one good case can hold, if you cram all that stuff in there. ;-D

Re: the do-it-yourself-assembly stuff. There is precisely one smaller bookcase I have that was well constructed, reasonably priced (I think it cost me about 35 bucks) AND held was sturdy. did they keep making it? Could I ever find another one like it? NO!

The worst is when instruction sets are apparently done by people for whom English is already a 12th language, and they didn't have a good grasp of language #1 for openers.

Anonymous said...

Invite one of your male friends round for a cup. Point at the stuff on the floor and say 'There must be smething wrong with it. No one manages to put the b%##§y thing together.' He'll assemble your shelf just to prove you that HE can do it. :-)

On the side of the angels said...

...after all; tomorrow is another day !
Dah - Daaah - de - dahhhhh
Dah -deee - da - daaaaaaah
Dah dahhhh dada - daaaaa
dah dahhh dah dahhhhhh

God bless ya scarlett

Mulier Fortis said...

Karen - the instructions are horrible little pictures - line drawings - which mean that you have to compare and contrast all the different pieces first (I mean, a screw is a screw, how am I supposed to know the difference?) and no words at all!

Heidi - LOL !

Anonymous said...

I hate it when the box indicates that the piece can be assembled in 1 hour!

Mulier Fortis said...

Yeah, they always fail to mention that it's one hour per day for a fortnight. If you're an Engineering graduate.

gemoftheocean said...

Oh, pictures. The WORST. They say "one picture is worth a 1000 words."

Yeah, SWEAR words, in this case.

The worst is one some critical little bit doesn't get a close up. I'm yelling "okay, I already have an "establishment shot" I need close-ups you morons."

Love Heidi's suggestion. She's right, the guys will fight to prove they could do it.

SAw a funny reader's Digest story a long time ago. This woman was sitting with her mother and sisters-in-law at a family picnic. They lived in Houston, and all the men in the family had jobs with NASA and the like, and were off talking "shop." One of the women said "doesn't listening in on their conversation make you feel dumb?" And the "mom" of the extended family said "No....it took the 3 of them all day to replace the storm door last winter.

WhiteStoneNameSeeker said...

Ah yes MFI Mission F(lipping) Impossible.

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