Cursing Ikea

Blasphemy!

Still, last night as I put the futon frame together wrong in yet a 4th way (!), I must admit, I was taking the great four letter name in vain. This frame, the Grankulla, is by no means a sensible creation. Why? Why? Why? would it be necessary to have two different mechanisms for attaching the slats to the lift-me-off-the floor supports???? Yes. On two of the sections the slats screw on (not easily) and on the third they are attached by plastic, yes plastic, nails. Bam! Bam! Bam!

I'm pretty good at reading directions- at least when I start before 8:30 pm. Obviously, this is not true after 8:30. I started out well, sorting the slats into three piles for the 3 futon sections. I carefully studied the pre-drilled holes so that I knew which were the "wide" ones that went in the middle vs the "narrow" ones that went on the other two sections.

Following the wordless directions, I started with the top section. Using our lamo screw driver I "started" the attachment of all the slats associated with this section. I screwed them in as far as I could. Kevin was going to have to finish screwing them in the remaining 3 cm. (Check out the use of that base ten measurement...more of that to come.)

Then, I moved onto the next section: the plastic nail section. Bam! Bam! Bam! I attached the first slat. Then, I was inspired and decided it would be much easier to drive the nails through the slats first so that a bit was poking out that could then be lined up more easily with the holes in the support! I hammered and hammered and hammered until Zelda had a headache. Then, I picked up the first and tried to line it up on the support. It didn't fit!!! Somehow, I had attached the first slat- a wide one- then prenailed the remaining four, NARROW slats! Ugh!

And, wouldn't you know it- the wide slats that I needed were not the slats remaining for the bottom section. Noooooo. Of course not. They were already attached by my painful screw driving maneuvers to the first section.

Let me tell you, as difficult as it is to drive a plastic nail into a too small hole (which I had just done) - that is NOTHING compared to trying to pull out a plastic nail. The nail head is really not meant for that. They would fold and slip out of the teeth of the hammer. Or, just fall apart.

Eventually, with Kevin's help I got them all out- and the screws out and got everything rescrewed (Kevin did this and has the blisters to prove it) and re-hammered. Mostly. The nails fit much better in the slats they were meant for- but still there were two that would neither nail in nor pull out. (See above.)

Next- attach the top two sections together.

Using the wrong screws.

It was as I was replacing these screws and discovering that I had attached the top section to the bottom of the second section (wrong) that I got a mammoth splinter and collapsed. It was after 10:30!





This morning Kevin lovingly asked me if I had recovered. "Yup".

Then, I took a shower. I washed my hair. Applied and rinsed out the conditioner. Then grabbed my Oil of Olay facial cleaner- and washed my hair.

Maybe I answered too soon.

And, so tonight Julian is sleeping in a bed for which the sections are merely pushed together. Hope he sleeps quietly.