home is where the furniture is

Here it is…finally. We have completely assembled furniture!!! I can’t tell you how happy it makes me. I have a new found appreciation for furniture. I have always taken for granted the availability of seating in a home, but not anymore. Every time I sit down on our new couch or work at our new desk, I think about how much I love having furniture. And don’t even get me started on the bed. A real bed WITH a mattress, ludicrous.

It was not easy. If a couple can make it through building Ikea furniture together, without killing each other, they’re in it for the long haul. That’s the true test. When we first started I thought, “This will be fun! Just like building Legos (which is my favorite).” And it was fun for the first couple minutes. Then one of the parts didn’t want to do what it was supposed to do. So we tried again. And again. Not working. We finally gave up on the premise that Ikea had sent us the wrong part. We later found out, when we chatted the Ikea lady online, that all we were missing was a little strength. Thanks, Ikea lady. I’ll be sure and order some of that next time.

The couch. This beast is worth every grueling second of screwing in nails with the flimsiest of Ikea tools. It is just the perfect size for our apartment, not too big but big enough to really get comfortable. AND it’s a pull-out couch!! The ease at which this couch transforms into a bed is truly miraculous. Like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

Then there’s the desk. Oh there were pieces everywhere. At least 60 of them – for this small little desk. On one of the steps we had to lay a big piece of the desk onto a bunch of nails sticking up from another piece. There was this one nail. It was not cooperating. All I wanted was for it to fit into the desk nicely so that we could be done. But I had to force it. I was shoving the desk as hard as I could to get over that nail … right into my finger.There was blood and a lot of pain. And then, just to spice up the day, I passed out. So that kind of put a damper on things. (Don’t worry, I DID get the piece into the nail, just had to take one for the team). I was put on manual reading duty the rest of the day, not allowed near any sort of building material (just like I planned it…muhahaha).

But perhaps the best story, on our adventure with Ikea, was when our second shipment came in. I didn’t order all the pieces that we needed for our bed, so we had to place a second order for it (and we added a kitchen table and a lamp in there too, for good measure). Apparently, this was not a home delivery, who knew? (Definitely not us). So we had to ride about 1/2 mile to pick up our packages. Mind you that we were picking up a kitchen table and Scott thought it was a good idea to take the bikes, but that’s beside the point. We pick up this incredibly heavy, awkwardly shaped package and there is no way we can ride our bikes with it (told you). So we proceed to walk, each carrying one side, back to our apartment. Then it started to rain. At this point I thought surely we were being punked. And then it started raining harder. 1/2 mile and four flights of stairs never felt so long. But we made it. And on our way back to get our bikes, it was perfectly dry, sun shinning. God really is the master jokster.

Moral of the story, do not underestimate Ikea (like I did). But in some ways it’s kind of awesome. I truly feel like I could make any piece of furniture now with my bare hands, from a tree. Ikea has taught me many lessons. Maybe if this teaching thing doesn’t work out I’ll go into carpentry.