Post IKEA

After almost 20 years of faithful service, it was finally time to say goodbye to our old dining suite. It still had some life left in it, depending on whether you are a "glass half full" person or not. The table itself was in pretty good nick. As were 4 of the 6 chairs. The other 2 chairs could be a bit dodgy, depending on their mood. The trick was in remembering which 2 chairs they were, and seating people accordingly. Made for a bit of a conversation piece at times. Anyway, as tough as it was, we decided that it was time. We had looked around for a while, so we knew pretty much what we wanted. In the end we decided for an IKEA dining table and chairs. The table we purchased sits 6 people normally, but expands out to comfortably seat 10 people. Now, we don't know 8 people whom we would invite for dinner at the same time, but, if we did. We also have a rather large dining area that you can't really do much else with, so might as well fill it up. We paid for a home delivery of the furniture as the packages were quite large and we were also getting some kitchen furniture delivered anyway. It cost about 500kr for a door to door delivery which is cheaper than us hiring a trailer and driving up and back.

So any, on the appointed delivery date I received a phone call that they were on their way. As bad luck would have it, my wife just "happened" to be at the stables, so she missed out on the fun unloading process. I have to say that the IKEA guys were very good. As they have been previously. Door to door means exactly that. Despite the fact that we live on the thrird floor of an apartment building, they carried every all the way into the room we wanted. To be fair, I did make it easy for them by holding the door open. I'm sure that they felt spoilt.

That was a couple of weeks ago. On Sunday I figured that I had run out of semi-believeable excuses and decided to go about starting the assembly of everything. I decided to start with the table first, as I could see that giving me the most grief. It didn't occur to me at the time that, despite it's size, a table is a pretty simple structure. I knocked it out in about 45 minutes. It was all looking pretty good, with just 6 chairs to throw together. If only life were so easy. I've always been impressed with the IKEA pictorial assembly instruction booklet. Occasionally you have to second guess the pictures to figure out exactly what they are saying but generally they are very clear and correct. Word of advice here, if you should attempt to assemble an IKEA dining chair, the best use for the assembly manual is to use it under the foot of the chair leg to stop it wobbling. The sequence of work was right, but the methodology only applies to a Russian gymnast, or an octopus. Apparently one was supposed to hang off the side of a table in order to assemble a chair. Having both faith and belief in the IKEA system, I followed their instructions as best as I could. After about 40 minutes I decided that the instruction manual need a slight tweek, and the project entered into phase "Shock and Awe". Over the years I have learnt that there is not much which can't be fixed with the aid of a heavy blunt instrument. If God hadn't invented the claw hammer, he wouldn't have wanted me to assemble an IKEA chair. I'm thinking of sending them an updated assembly manual. Instead of taking nearly an hour, with the aid of 0.5kg hammer and a few minor adjustments to the installation process I was belting out a chair in 15 minutes. There's something to be said for brunt force and pig ignorance.