Like with all modern tragedies this starts off with the same cliche phrase- optimism. And when I say optimism, I am referring to the unearned target that never quite gets acheived. “I am going to pop into FLATPACK FURNISIHNGS right now,” I claimed to myself.
“After Saturday’s dinner, I will be picking up a bookshelf I have been looking for. It should take no longer than an hour, if that.”
Initially, my assumptions were way off since 4 hours later I ended up collapsing on the living room floor enveloped in an explosion of styrofoam peanuts, 76 identical wooden components and cardboard that wasn’t anywhere close to what the instructions had. At this point, my right thumb was stuffed with blood from having an unnessecary encounter with a very sharp screw.
Not only this, my back was urgently aching as if sending me telegrammes regarding early retirement and I found myself trtuly on the verge of setting the whole thing ablaze and telling my insurance comapny it was an act Of God’s. The guides – and I use that term loosely – were supposedly supposed to be made up of sixteen pages of diagrams done by an artist who had never seen furniture. They were full of masterpieces, that’s for sure.
But what they most definitely lacked were words – because why would they put together an instruction manual worthy of being called a masterpiece? I mean, heaven forbid they put down words that would help clarify which indistinguishable dowel goes into which identical-looking hole. The instruction manual was full of pictograms, arrows, and weirdly placed exclamation points that warned of indefinite dangers.
The first page includes a happy stick figure unpacking a box, rising with glee. And by the sixteenth page, he is somehow standing adjacent to a completed bookshelf, still smiled like a moron. And I am sure all of us ask ourselves this question and I think the answer is having pikachu use thunderbolt over all the incomplete filled pages.
The answer is magic, which by the way, is as easy to define as quantum physics explained via interpretive dance. The infographics containing an inventory of parts as screws, bolts, wooden rods, and other unidentified metallic objects served as the foundation of psychological warfare. The task seemed simple – each object was assigned a code and a number, which identified the quantity available.
The graphics labeled them like A4 x 12 or J7 x 4. However, things were not as simple as they appeared. All of these objects looked the same.
Now, they lay all over the floor, like the remnants of a bomb explosion in a hardware shop. Did the A4 screws actually exist? Who knows.
I certainly didn’t want to count them as the chances of uncovering a number that would doom my project were high. I remember making mistakes as shopping, believing the packaging to be an instruction box. Stating ‘Easy Assembly’, in large letters, Was the warning label ‘No Special Tools Required,’ and ‘Complete in 45 Minutes’ was not something that I could swallow easily.
I realized, these were not instructions. They were straight out of a fantasy book, trying to deceive the users in the same way claiming that chocolate is a vegetable or taxes are fun. The first hour went towards attempting to understand an aspect which seemed as uninteresting as a murder guessing game with a cybotic killer where every suspect was a 3-centimeter metal cylinder.
“Is this E6 or E8?” I mumbled while two identical screws burnt my retinas after sunbathing under a light. “Does it even matter?” Well, it does (Spoiler alert: yes, it mattered as I discovered three hours later when the shelf’s left side crashed down since I used the wrong one complain “it was serves best description.”)
I had reached step 3 of 12 by the second hour. At this point, I was actually ahead of where instructions claimed I would be.
This consisted of two wooden panels being attached via dowels and screws that looked like they were designed to fit just barely under slightly less than the pre-drilled holes. The illustrations depicted sliding fingers joining parts as if it was a stroll in the park. In reality, I found myself covered in sweat and profanity while taking out a hammer – certainly a “special tool” that wasn’t mentioned in the “no special tools needed” clause – to connect pieces that were clearly uninterested in doing so.
This was how I used to imagine marriage. It is around this period that I stumbled upon the most infuriating part of furniture assembly: the part that fits almost perfectly. You know – the one that matches 99% of the designated joints but refuses to slide into the final connection point.
So then you Push. So you Jiggle. Then you take everything off and retry.
You check the instructions for the seventeenth time, convinced you missed something. Which you didn’t. The gods of furniture assembly are clearly toying with you extracting their amusement from your misery.
The so-called allen wrench that was sent with the package – a paperclip that had seemingly gone through some trauma, starting to bend, began to strip the hexagonal sockets of the screws around the 3rd hour mark. I felt myself overpowering the force. This is the furniture superheroes’ assembly alternative to believing that one extra hand at the blackjack table will definitely win back all your losses.
At this point, my living room was looking like a cross between an art installation gone wrong and a war zone. Used packages served as a nest. The instruction manual, covered in stains from my half-finished coffee, along with a footprint was opened to a page that might as well have been in Sumerian because it wasn’t helping me.
Half completed pieces that would eventually become shelves were standing up against the wall, just barely, like they were one push away from breaking completely. And then my favorite part in assembling furniture which was finding out something was put together the wrong way. I had put together Panel F alongside Panel J.
The finished part was placed inside meaning the piece would be unable to be finished due to the exposed edge. This realization made me want to break down. Taking out the pieces required unfastening sixteen escrows that in my eyes were placed using sheer luck, brute force, and what I like to call furniture assembly Stockholm syndrome.
I sat back on my heels, weighing the options in my mind. Accept a bookcase with the edge of the side still visibly rough or torn apart and completely start fresh? Or just give up on the project altogether and claim to anyone that I showcase furniture that is only half built as the latest trend in interior design?
Well, I was not surprised to see that neither of these options were covered in the instructions. Clearly the stick figure icon had no such issues while assembling this furniture with ease. What puzzle me even more was when I was faced with to most infuriating problem: each side had a number printed which seemed microscopic at first glance.
These numbers, which aligned with the already numbered panels in the instructions, had been there all along. In order to make the assembly easier, these parts could’ve been labeled but no, they decided “Let’s frustrate the user for endless hours while they try to figure this out.” The fact that eyeing these numbers felt more like mockery was not surprising considering the font that only an electron microscope would do justice too. I pushed on with new motivation (and a few ibuprofen).
When the fifth hour rolled around, I experienced a minor miracle; the shelf started looking like the picture- well, kind of. It was starting to look like a shelf, that’s for sure. While the different sections should have been flush on the sides, they did connect at least.
My hands were shaking as I turned the screws, heart pounding, like I was defusing a bomb and absolutely shiverring at the thought of it all crumbling in front of me. Attaching the back panel was the final step, which to my great surprise was not too hard. That still didn’t erase the fact that the cardboard piece was flimsy and the only thing keeping it in one piece was wet tissue paper.
Sadly, following the instructons made me think this had been designed to actively cause pain. Securing it in place required thirty-two nails, which I have to mention, were the size of a gnat’s eyelash. Attaching these needed the carefulness of a brain surgeon alongside a saint’s patience, which I did not have after spending five minutes on the floor working with a bent Allen wrench and dreams that have long been crushed.
It was complete. Sort of. It stood instead of laying down, so that seemed like a win.
The object had the rough outline of a bookshelf from an architect who had a very loose grasp with right angles. Although quite a few screws were still missing. I was worried that I had overlooked some critical structural parts, but I would much rather hope that the manufacturer had misplaced some extra screws.
There was a slight wobble when touched on the top shelf which made me think otherwise though. The true test happened when I put an actual book on the shelf. Although the structure swayed, it remained sturdy.
Eventually I added a second and third book. By the fifth book, I was breath held stunned at how this object was managing to stand. Somehow the shelf stood straight defiant of all the odds and engineering principles.
Looking back at what I made, the labor put into this is monument my physique and agony. Where I stand, I can see it is not very beautiful and it is not seamless. Undeniably, one side is much higher resulting it to have a careless, drunken lean meaning carpenters would be in tears.
It is not pretty but at least it is mine to claim, built with my hands, approximately one beer of sweat and lots of rage. To say I had a colorful vocabulary to paint a wordy rainbow might be an understatement. Six hours is what I spent and that is not factoring the twenty minutes break where I laid face-down on the carpet contemplating a life where self furniture assembly was a myth.
The statement of no special tools quote me as needing to be a tad bit more optimistic because the issues with probes, hammers, screw drivers, and in sheer desperation, a butter knife was an unsolvable one. In collecting the set of manuels I wanted to grab, I asked myself a question I never really contemplated before: why do I or rather we, for that matter, put ourselves through torture of self assembly. In the end I found too much packing material that could protect a collection of rare Faberge eggs and more than enough card board to build a fort.
The answer is obvious, isn’t it?” Money. The luring song of inexpensive furniture makes us step into these DIY failures. We try to convince ourselves that we are saving hundreds by buying unassembled pieces which we ‘conveniently’ ignore the cost of our time, sanity, and the medication we are bound to require.
There’s also a bit of proud arrogant difficulty at work. Once engaged, a furniture assembly task turns into a kind of duel—a struggle between you and an unmoving assortment of wood and metal. If you were to give up in the middle it would mean admitting you lost, which frankly, no sane person would want to do.
My new bookshelf is now resting in the corner of my living room packed with books, which I specifically selected for their lightness and replaceable status. I have positioned it in such a way that it leans against the wall strategically hiding its worst architectural features. It nearly looks as if it was crafted with professionalism from certain angles and with poor lighting.
People have complimented it, which is unbelievable, but I do feel a strange sense of pride, even though it’s not really that good. “I built it myself,” as if I had cut down trees and forged metal parts in a volcano. What I don’t tell them is that I’ve promised myself to never fall for the “simple assembly” trick ever again.
The next time I need furniture, I will gladly pay for setting it up and I will gladly pay more for pieces that are already built. Some lessons, such as some Allen wrenches, are hard to forget. As for the three screws that were not used, they are now resting in a drawer with similar items from other projects, a collection of mechanical reminders that in the world of DIY furniture, completion is not perfection, but mere survival.
